


An Unlikely Sort of Paradise

by orphan_account



Category: Hoshi no Kaabii | Kirby: Right Back at Ya!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-01-15 06:19:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12315468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Instead of dying when Holy Nightmare's base explodes, Customer Service manages to follow the heroes to Popstar, though that comes along with its own set of problems. What's a loyal demon to do when trapped in the heart of the enemy's territory?Just trying to survive is one thing. But slowly discovering everything Nightmare never told him, about himself as well as Popstar's ancient history, that's another matter entirely...





	1. Prologue

**The stars see everything.**

“ _... not much time left, but that's fine. You two still live... this paradise still lives. Observer--”_

“ _I told you to call me--”_

“ _Els'andra, yes. Just listen to me, would you? We both know how that_ bastard _works... he will make another like me, it's only a matter of time, and you're the only one who will live long enough to see it and still remember. Swear to me, that when those children are born, when you find them, you will look after them as best you can. They won't have their elder brother around to do it, you see?”_

“ _Damn you, Li. You knew he wouldn't let you live, you knew it and you still--” Some cursing in her native language, but then Els'andra quieted and spoke Standard again. She flicked her tail, the bell on the end ringing a bit. “Fine, as this is the only thing I can offer you now. I swear it on my honor as a mage.”_

“ _Thank you. And High Priestess, I have a task for you as well--”_

_There was sniffling from the other woman nearby, and she wiped at her eyes with one gloved hand. “So that I can fail at it just as I've failed at saving you? Why wasn't my magic strong enough...?”_

“ _It's fine, Lele-chan; it's not your fault. It was inevitable, knowing him, but not your fault.” There was a coughing fit from the dying warrior, a thin trickle of blood tracing down from one corner of his mouth. “Y-your task... is to take this, and seal it away as strongly as you can. Even if this weapon is a fellow rogue, I will not have it falling into the Emperor's hands again.”_

“ _I promise you, that monster will never find it so long as my line draws breath.”_

**Every hope, every dream, every moment no matter their heights or depths, the stars will take notice.**

_A tiny bell jingled as the tail it was attached to twitched a bit. "Hmm, the resemblance is uncanny--”_

“ _Who're you?”_

“ _I'm your new doctor, little one. Your 'mom' saved me from the mean old Galaxy Soldiers, and now I'm here to help you feel better.”_

“ _My name's Jin, what's your name?”_

“ _My name is--”_

**Even when they cannot be seen, even when the darkness is at its blackest, the stars are still there, watching.**

“ _H-he's gone? It's not enough those scum took her from me, they had to take him too?!”_

“ _Jin, I-I'm not sure what to say...”_

“ _... I'll kill them. I'LL KILL THEM ALL! Every last damned one of them, from the lowly footsoldiers to their vaunted Star Warriors, the Galaxy Soldier Army will cease to exist! I won't rest until they're all dying at our feet, dying before the strength of Holy Nightmare!”_

“ _If that's what you really want, I will be here regardless.”_

**And when the light grows to its brightest, the shadows to their longest, the stars witness all.**

“ _... to those of my lineage, I command you, LIVE! No matter the trials you face, you must survive them, so that I may return and seek vengeance! As dreams fade and are reborn, nightmares reemerge as well!”_

 


	2. Prologue

Customer Service did not run far. Why would he? It wasn't like any of Star Warriors started chasing after him . . . that was rather odd when he thought about it. Even if Kirby managed to do the impossible, to actually kill Nightmare... why weren't they also trying to kill him, or at the very least trying to disable the fortress somehow? The reactor systems were about 30 floors straight down, and their little raiding party hadn't managed to go anywhere near those.

The main control room and the delivery system transmitter room shared a wall and interior door, but were also connected via the corridors. The demon salesman quickly followed the Dreamlanders using that outer route, managing to stealthily open the outer door to peer inside. Meta Knight and his knaves were far too busy setting the delivery system up to transmit to even notice that movement, and all of the others were crowded in a great pile on the transport pad. Now why were they so eager to run away, weren't they winning--

-– Wait, what was that, on the side of the transport pad? The thing's beige color certainly stood out on the dark metal, but more important was the timer attached to it, ticking down the seconds. Customer Service couldn't quite hold back a gasp. A bomb there would send a chain reaction straight into the reactor core, certainly destroying the entire fortress in one fell swoop. It was a method that Dakonyo fool had put to great use in destroying other bases with delivery systems back during the war.

There was no way he could get clear in time, even if he somehow survived the initial explosion.

Panic nearly set in, but if he stood there terrified he was dead. It wasn't like him to just give up, and there was always at least one way out of a bad situation. Besides that, the answer was right there in front of him, being used by those damned knights! He started sprinting for the pad a second before Sword and Blade jumped into the active transport beam, was right next to it when Meta Knight followed his servants. He closed his eyes before he leaped towards the swirling energy himself, nearly praying to Nightmare that he would make it through--

* * *

When Customer Service next had the courage to open his eyes again, it was not oblivion that greeted him, nor a quickly expanding fireball. No, instead of any of that, the only thing that surrounded him were the flashing lights and patterns of the internet bitstream leading away from the fortress. He glanced behind him only to see the entrance leading back to Holy Nightmare's private network vanish without a trace. His eyes widened behind his shades at the sight, tears he hadn't quite realized he was holding back beginning to track their way down his face. This was now a one-way trip, home no longer existed.

It was a consequence of war, albeit one he wasn't expecting. He'd kill them all for it later, he would! Despite the thoughts of revenge, Customer Service still curled up on himself as he floated along, quietly grieving. The Dreamlanders were so far ahead of him he might as well be alone, so better to take these few moments for himself. There would be no place for it where he was currently headed.

Ugh, certainly not the greatest split second decision he ever made, but at least he was still alive to regret it. That would have to be the mantra to get him through this, whatever his enemies would do to him: so long as he survived, there was still another chance.

Things started to get a whole lot brighter up ahead of him, signifying the Dream Land end of the delivery system was very close. Customer Service retrieved a handkerchief from a suit pocket and dried the few tears he allowed to fall, beginning to mentally prepare himself for arrival in the heart of enemy territory. He expected to live through the next few hours, but it definitely would be unpleasant.

* * *

Meanwhile, on the Dream Land end of things a few minutes later, Kirby and company were just stepping off the delivery system in Dedede's throne room. More to the point, everyone seemed to materialize two feet above the pad and bounced off when they landed. Those who'd stayed behind helped the returning heroes to their feet, and in Parm and Memu's case, they just did what parents do best.

"Fumu, Bun, are you two all right? You didn't get hurt at all, did you?" Memu asked, looking concerned. As soon as she got close enough to Bun, she caught him in a hug, even with him squirming a little.

"Aww, come on, Mom; we're fine! We totally kicked their butts, too! Even Silica and Knuckle Joe showed up to help, it was awesome!" Bun kept trying to wriggle out of his mother's grip, to go and brag to his friends, but he gave up eventually. Besides, it was actually sort of nice getting hugged after all that adventuring.

Fumu was of a differing opinion. "That's easy for you to say! At least you didn't get grabbed by that creepy Nightmare thing . . ."

That comment got a gasp out of both her parents. Parm stepped forward, looking over his daughter to make sure she was okay. "You were caught by Nightmare? Are you sure you're all right, Fumu?"

Fumu answered with a nod. "Yeah, I'm okay thanks to Kirby. You should've seen him, Dad; he really lived up to the title of 'Star Warrior' today. Nightmare's gone now . . . I hope so, anyway. Something still doesn't feel right, though . . ."

Before anyone could ask the girl what she meant by that, Dedede and Escargon appeared from the delivery system. The snail bounced off the pad like just about everyone else did, but Dedede actually managed to land on his feet. The king wore a fairly smug expression on his face, seeing as he'd gotten revenge and wiped out his debt in one fell swoop.

"Nyahahaha, we sure showed those creeps, didn't we?" Dedede cackled as he bounded off the teleport pad, unmindful that he was the cause of most of the trouble in the first place. "All that 'fighting evil' stuff made me hungry, I say we have a party to celebrate our victory!"

Escargon slid over to Dedede's throne and started examining the buttons used to control the comm and the delivery system. "Forget about a party, Your Majesty, I have to dismantle this thing first! If I don't, who knows what might come after us!" Meta Knight seemed to be be powering up a Sword Beam, but the snail yelled at him, "No, you can't take it apart like that! The power core will take out this whole room if you hit it with your attacks, so stand down!"

Dedede looked annoyed, and as usual his mallet appeared from nowhere. He gestured at the still nearby Sergeant Dakonyo with it as he said, "Didn't that guy set explosives through that whole place? In that case, nothing's going to be able to come over here from there, it'll all be blown to bits!" His mallet came around again, this time Dedede threatened Escargon with it. "Now, I'm hungry and I want to party! If I don't get some food soon there's going to be some smashing going on!"

But, fate had other ideas, and Dedede wouldn't be getting his food quite as soon as he hoped. The delivery system powered up again, making everyone jump back from it in surprise. Meta Knight drew Galaxia, while Sword and Blade drew their more mundane weapons. Kirby, for his part, just got ready for whatever sort of action that was coming through the delivery system. Dedede still had his mallet, and hefted it to his shoulder in case he had to swing it in a hurry.

"Be ready for anything, Kirby . . ." Meta Knight advised, his grip tightening on Galaxia. The pink puff responded with a 'Poyo' and a nod, preparing for battle in his own little way.

The delivery system flared to it's usual brilliant life, thin arcs of energy crackling out from the machine. It hit the top of it's cycle and whatever was coming through materialized in mid-air above the pad, landing with a short scream and a thud. When the light faded and they could finally see just who it was lying dazed on the pad, almost everyone gaped in surprise.

"It's that damn salesman from Holy Nightmare! What the hell's he doing here?!" Dedede demanded.

Escargon seemed to speed up his messing with the delivery system controls. "See, I told you so! Maybe he's leading an army in! In that case, now I really have to hurry up and dismantle this thing!"

At the mention of the possible invasion, most of the Cappies started to panic. Meta Knight attempted to calm the crowd, knowing that a room full of panicking Cappies is a very dangerous place to be. "Remain calm, everyone! Nothing else has come through yet, and it's not like he's that much of a threat all by himself." Calm slowly returned to the crowd.

Fumu had to put her two cents in and said, "How dare you come here! You think we'll just welcome you with open arms, even after everything you did to us and to Kirby?!"

Customer Service stood up then, waving his hands in front of him as if to ward off the harsh words. "I can explain, really! If I did not follow orders, I would have been killed or worse!"

Fumu looked downright indignant. "You expect us to believe that? You enjoyed it too much!"

Before Customer Service could say anything else, Dedede broke back into the conversation. "Feh, nevermind, that doesn't matter. What does matter is that I'm gonna clobber him!" The penguin monarch brought his mallet down in a mighty swing, but he wasn't actually aiming for Customer Service. He was aiming for a spot on the teleport pad just beside him. The mallet left a dent in the pad and sent out a small shockwave that shook the room.

Customer Service jumped back with a yelp of surprise and more than a little fear. He looked around the room, growing more afraid at the sight of the warriors in the room who still had their weapons out. He cringed slightly, and took a few more steps back, looking like he was about to bolt.

Dedede grinned at this, enjoying his enemy's fear. "Gyahaha, not so high and mighty now, are ya? Let's see you try ripping me off now; you're nothing without your pack of demons!" Customer Service backed away a little more, and Dedede knew he'd run for it if he pushed him much further. If he managed to get out into the castle, even in the state it was in, they'd probably never find him again. The king had to put an end to his fun for the moment, in the interest of having their 'guest' still around for more fun and/or torture later. He bellowed for the Waddle Dees. "Guards, get him! Take that slimeball to the dungeon where I don't have to look at him!"

Waddle Dees, tons of them, suddenly began streaming into the throne room. They surrounded their target, and the circle of Dees innermost tackled Customer Service to the floor. The rest of them closed in, then, lifting him up to carry and then running for the dungeon at their top speed.

Dedede cackled some more and put his mallet away. "Heh, and that takes care of him for the moment! Now, how about that party?" The entire crowd in the room looked at him strangely, then most of the Cappies just sort of shrugged and followed Dedede to wherever with Kirby in tow. The only ones left in the throne room after everyone else took off were Escargon, Meta Knight, Sword, Blade, and Fumu.

Escargon didn't look pleased at Dedede's antics, but he just kept tinkering with the buttons on the throne. "He can't ever think of the important things, like taking this thing out before anything else from one of Nightmare's bases can come through." He noticed Meta Knight starting to move and he smirked. "Well, I know where you're going, Meta Knight, you're going to check out our new prisoner . . . go right ahead, and maybe you can give that jerk a proper interrogation while you're down there."

"I'll see what I can do. He might not have any useful information, though." Meta Knight replied as he stepped to follow the Waddle Dees. Almost as an afterthought, he called over his shoulder to Sword and Blade. "Sword, Blade, go after Kirby and make sure he doesn't get into any trouble. He probably won't, but we still can't be too careful." Meta Knight strode from the room.

Fumu looked like she was going to follow the knight, but then Escargon called for her. "Fumu, come over here and help me, will you? I think you know enough to be able to help, and some of this dismantling is going to be a two person job. Besides, if Meta Knight is going to interrogate that guy, you _really_ don't want to be down there . . ."

The girl opened her mouth to protest, but then she sighed in annoyance. "Oh, all right . . ." Fumu went over to the throne to see what she could help with.

* * *

By the time Meta Knight got down to the dungeon, the horde of Waddle Dees had mostly vanished back to their current task of castle repair. Customer Service was already locked in one of the cells. He was sitting on the small bed looking considerably calmer than he was upstairs, though the Star Warrior was pretty sure the demon was shaking a bit as he sat there.

Meta Knight stepped closer to the cell bars. Customer Service barely seemed to acknowledge him, but the knight asked him something anyway. "You. Why are you here?"

Customer Service crossed his arms in annoyance, not even glancing over at Meta Knight. "I have a name, you know." Not that he expected the knight to know it, of course; no one outside the company knew his real name. It was still sort of rude that Meta Knight hadn't bothered asking, though.

Meta Knight's hand twitched for Galaxia. The Star Warrior somehow managed to conceal his irritation as he said, "Well then, why don't you tell me what it is? At least that way we won't have to keep calling you 'You' all the time."

The salesman bowed just barely enough to be polite, though the smirk that graced his lips said everything else he thought about the situation. "Jin Akumu at your service, Sir Meta Knight.” He straightened and answered the earlier question, though he seemed a tad unsure about it. “As for why I'm here . . . well, what other choice did I have? I prefer capture over certain death, thank you very much."

Meta Knight didn't seem amused by his answer. "That's the only reason? Somehow I find that hard to believe, especially coming from someone so loyal to Nightmare."

Customer Service, or rather, Jin, turned towards the armored puffball and actively glared at him. "It's the only reason I _have_. I certainly can't think of any other reason why I'd want to come to this place. Besides, my father-- erm, the Emperor of Darkness is dead, isn't he?" He sighed and looked away. "I just . . . I didn't want to die as well, all right?"

"I'll take your word for it, for the moment. But if you've lead anything else here, don't expect me to be merciful later." Meta Knight warned, his eyes glowering red for a split second.

Jin scooted back a bit on the bed, trying to get more distance between himself and the obviously irritated Star Warrior. "I didn't have time to grab any tracking devices, I barely had time to even follow you all here! If any demon beasts appear and attack, it's really not my fault, I swear!"

"Hrmph, very well. But don't forget my warning . . ." Without another word, Meta Knight left, only the swishing of his cape announcing his passing.

Jin just sort of sighed at Meta Knight's departure. He idly ran a hand through his purple hair, just before yawning mightily. He was a bit surprised, normally he wouldn't even be slightly drowsy at this time of day . . . then again, considering how much stress he'd gone through for the past handful of hours, he supposed it was only natural. He tried to lay down for a while, though he didn't expect much with how his mind was still racing, despite how physically tired he felt.

* * *

Roughly two hours had passed, and Jin was just lying there on the hard mattress, staring up at the ceiling. Sleep seemed to be an impossibility for the moment, not that he needed much sleep to begin with. All the rushing around and saving his own hide had been the priority earlier. Now that he had time to actually sit there and think about things, that was about the only thing he was able to do.

Was Nightmare really gone? He didn't understand it, his boss was supposed to be untouchable... That was how it seemed to Jin, anyway. Nightmare would rarely come out to fight, but when he did, any resistance would be absolutely crushed. Whole armies could throw themselves at the Emperor of Darkness, and he wouldn't so much as yawn at their pitiful attempts to damage him. And yet, a certain pink puffball had apparently managed the impossible. How did that pink ball do it? Kirby was strong to be sure, but strong enough to stand up against Nightmare and win?

No, there's just no way that could happen! At least, not under normal circumstances . . . maybe Kirby cheated somehow? Even as he thought that, he sort of crossed it from his mind. Kirby wouldn't know how to cheat at anything, and if he did, the little guy's nature as a Star Warrior wouldn't let him anyway. And that reminded him, there were two Star Warriors on this planet: Kirby and that blasted Meta Knight. Though Jin had no powers to speak of, he was still technically a demon beast, and just being anywhere near those two made him uncomfortable. Who wouldn't be, when faced with what the cosmic balance designed to be your natural enemy?

That last thought lingered a little longer than he would have liked, and it didn't take him long to realize why. He was completely and utterly surrounded by enemies on Pop Star, wasn't he? Dedede and Escargon, Fumu and her family, Kirby, Meta Knight and his two servants, not to mention all those Cappies whose village was burned to the ground by the Destrayer fleet . . . Now why did he come to Pop Star again? Oh, yes, it was either that or dying on the fortress. But now he was stuck likely without hope of a quick rescue, and they would probably have him executed anyway! He would be lucky if His Majesty didn't have him burnt at the stake . . .

Jin's thoughts turned to the various ways the Dreamlanders could have him killed, and he started shaking a little. He forcefully shoved all of that to the back of his mind to calm himself again. No, he had to stop thinking like that! If he panicked, he would be dead for sure . . . no, there had to be a way out of this, there always was. All he had to do was find it.

Sleep still wouldn't be coming to him for a while, but at least plotting a way to survive was a little more productive than just lying there.

 


	3. A Trial of Sorts, and a Memory...

Jin awoke the next morning to the sound of Waddle Doo raking his sword across the cell bars.  
  
"Hey, wake up, you! The king would like to have a little talk with you . . ."  
  
The former HNM employee just sort of groaned as he laid there. Between the unfamiliar bed and the strange dreams, Jin's sleep was hardly restful. He sat up and regarded Waddle Doo, who looked rather impatient. His first thought was that it was entirely too early to be awake. What he said was, "I don't suppose I get breakfast first?"  
  
Waddle Doo didn't look particularly pleased with Jin's sense of humor. "Oh, shut up and come on!" The soldier unlocked the cell door, allowing Jin to step out into the corridor. Two spear-carrying Waddle Dees were already waiting, and they pointed with their weapons in the direction they wanted their prisoner to go. The group went upstairs, to meet with Dedede in the throne room.  
  
When they got there, the first sight that greeted them was the pile of scrap metal the delivery system had been reduced to. Once Escargon had taken out or deactivated the more sensitive parts of the device, it was all right for the Waddle Dees to go at it with their tools. The results were plain to see, in a big pile off to the right side of the room. Occasionally, a Dee would go up to the pile, grab a piece of metal or something from it, and then run back out into the castle with it. Considering how many times the castle's been destroyed, the Dees were probably using the metal for added support to what they were rebuilding.  
  
Dedede was in his usual spot on his throne. On spotting Jin and company approaching, he said, rather haughtily, "Well, well, my newest employee finally decided to get out of bed. How nice of you to grace us with your presence." Dedede's evil grin probably couldn't get any bigger, though it was trying.  
  
Jin normally wasn't a morning person, and Dedede's attitude was just irritating. But being negative certainly wouldn't help with his situation, so he forced a smile and said, "Good morning, Your Majesty. While I no longer have the resources I once did, I'll still try to help you as best I can. What do you need?"  
  
"Oh, you're still being polite? That's just wonderful." Dedede got a laugh out of that, then continued. "Well, my castle is kind of in a state of disrepair at the moment. The Waddle Dees are working as fast as they can, but I'd like something that could speed things up. So, can you get me any more of those demon beasts? Just one or two would be nice."  
  
“Huh?” Jin could only manage to regard Dedede with a dumbfounded stare for a moment. While there certainly were more demon beasts elsewhere, depending on what was done to the delivery system's communication array, there was no way to contact them. Not that he would make the attempt right there in the open, anyway. Even trapped on Pop Star like this, he was still the acting CEO of Holy Nightmare; he would protect his assets as best he could. He spoke up then, not quite lying, but fully expecting to feel the wrath of Dedede's mallet for what he had to say. "I apologize, Your Majesty, I can't."  
  
It took a second for Jin's answer to register to Dedede, but once it did, the king's mood went from pleasant to downright volcanic. He stood up, bringing his mallet with him, and roared, "WHAT?! What do you mean you can't?"  
  
The salesman winced at Dedede's angry yell, then quickly began to explain himself, weaving lies out of the truth as fast as he could. "I just can't! Holy Nightmare's base was destroyed by your subjects, and who knows if any of the demon beasts survived the explosion." Jin's voice took on something of a sad tone for what he had to say next. Whether he was embellishing on that sadness or not was anyone's guess, at least from outer appearances. "And Nightmare . . . Nightmare's gone now. I can't sense him anymore."  
  
If anything, Dedede grew more agitated, gesturing wildly with the mallet. "And what does any of that have to do with why you can't get me any more demons? I want real answers right now!"

Jin took a step back, then a few more. A light poke from one of the Dees' spears made him stop, but his anxiety still kept climbing. He really hoped this wouldn't go on for too much longer, otherwise the penguin monarch might end up enraged enough to attack him. Again the demon salesman kept up with his previous lines, trying to get them through Dedede's exceptionally thick skull. "I really don't know what else I can tell you, Your Majesty. Holy Nightmare is gone, my superior is dead, and so are all the demon beasts . . . there's simply nothing left to give to you!"

Those words didn't really get through to Dedede either, and he still pressed on. "So your boss is dead, huh?" A smug smirk formed on his lips. "Hmph, that doesn't matter. The only thing that does matter is you getting me what I want. Now, can you get me a demon beast or can't you?"  
  
Nightmare's death didn't matter to the king? Jin grit his teeth, seeing red to the point where he actually took a step towards the king, regardless of actually being able to harm him. Hurt and rage fueled his next words, his voice twisting slightly from their intensity. "This is why you're so easily manipulated, you're an imbecile! I didn't create any of the demon beasts, Nightmare did! He created me too, but he never gave me the power to make demons. And then there you are, up on your blasted throne, forcing me to explain to you that my home is gone and my father is dead!" The rage burnt out almost as soon as it appeared, and hurt won in the end. The corners of his eyes stung, but he held any potential tears back, unwilling to let Dedede see any further tells.  
  
Dedede just sort of froze at the unexpected tirade, complete surprise etched on his face. However, it didn't take long for the raging torrent of his anger to go blazing through the freeze and explode outward once again. "How dare you talk to me like that! Waddle Doo, take this creep back to the dungeon! And know this, if you can't get me any demons, I'm going to put YOU to work out there fixing my castle!"  
  
Waddle Doo saluted with his sword. "Yes, Your Majesty!" He faced Jin and said, "All right, back you go!", then he, the two spear-toting Waddle Dees and their prisoner went back the way they came.  
  
They hadn't been gone for more than a minute when Meta Knight entered the room. "I agree with Jin; you ARE an imbecile, trying to order more demons like that."  
  
The king was in no mood to talk to Meta Knight, and he growled, "Oh, shut up, Meta Knight! Besides, it wasn't like he actually got them for me, anyway. That guy is totally useless now."  
  
"Perhaps, or perhaps not. Either way, we do still need to decide what to do with him. We can discuss it later." With that, Meta Knight disappeared into the shadows of the castle once again.

* * *

Down in the village, the rebuilding effort was kicking into high gear. Just about everyone was pitching in, helping to rebuild what was destroyed when the Destrayer ships attacked. Fumu and Bun were helping Kawasaki fix his shop; Fumu was giving the chef some pointers on how to cook a little better. Memu was over helping Mabel rebuild her shop, while idly gossiping. Sword and Blade were putting a new roof on Samo's bar. Parm was at Tago's store, helping to clean up the mess there.  
  
Rick and Coo had come out of their forest to lend a hand, and even Tokkori was flying around giving some light tools to those who asked. Even a small horde of Waddle Dees had come from the castle to assist everyone, remembering the earlier kindness of the villagers. Kirby was there too, trying to help, but was mostly just being cute and staying out of everyone else's way.  
  
"This is hard work, but it's worth it," Fumu began, looking rather proud of everyone's handiwork. "Our village will be back to normal in no time if we stay at this pace!" She was truly impressed. Just a few days prior, she would have thought the villagers weren't capable of that kind of teamwork.  
  
Bun looked tired and felt that way too. He stretched out in an effort to make his poor arms and legs feel a little better. "Aww, but I'm worn out, sis! Can't we take a break or something?"  
  
"You're just saying that because you're bored!" If there was one thing Fumu couldn't tolerate about her brother, it was that he bored so easily. That boredom usually lead the boy straight into trouble, and even as much as he annoyed her, she'd rather not have Bun get hurt as a result of being bored. "Why don't you go trade jobs with someone, it'll be different from what you've been doing."  
  
"Eh, okay, I guess . . ." Bun started to wander off, but that's when he spotted Meta Knight standing on a pile of building supplies nearby. "Oh, hey Meta Knight! Are you here to help rebuild too?"  
  
"Not exactly," Meta Knight replied. "Have you seen your sister around here? There's something we need to talk about." The knight was sort of hoping Bun wouldn't ask him why he needed to talk to Fumu, but knew the kid just couldn't resist.  
  
"Well, she's right over there." Bun pointed in his sister's direction. "What did you want to talk to her about? You could tell me too!"  
  
"It's actually rather important, Bun. You probably wouldn't really care about it anyway." Meta Knight decided not to mention that Bun was likely not mature enough to really understand the situation. You just don't tell something like that to a little boy and expect him to not argue with you about it. He jumped down from the pile of wood and headed over to talk to Fumu.  
  
Fumu was just putting the finishing touches on the new sign for Kawasaki's place when Meta Knight walked up to her. Wondering what he wanted, she said, "Oh, hi Sir Meta Knight! What are you doing down here? I thought you were keeping an eye on Dedede so he wouldn't come out and cause enough trouble to interrupt our rebuilding?"  
  
"His Majesty is a little too busy rebuilding his castle to come down here and cause problems at the moment." Though really, who knew how long that would last, given the king's penchant for trouble when he grew bored with whatever he was doing in the castle. Meta Knight cleared his throat slightly and continued. "But that's not why I'm here. We're going to have a meeting in a few hours, to discuss the fate of our 'guest' staying in the castle dungeon. I'd like you to be there, to help balance out any of the more irrational ideas the king may have."  
  
"Okay, Meta Knight, I'll be there. I was hoping to help decide what happens to Jin, anyway," Fumu answered. She really did want to be there, since she expected Dedede wouldn't be the only source of 'irrational ideas' they'd have to contend with. Fumu didn't exactly expect who would really cause the most problems, but that wasn't something she could predict easily, after all.  
  
"Very well, then. I'll see you there." Meta Knight headed back towards the castle, pausing to tell Parm and Memu of the meeting as well.  
  
Bun watched Meta Knight leave. He'd been listening in on the knight's conversation with Fumu and the whole thing just made him angry. Meta Knight not inviting him to a meeting that the rest of his family could go to? He didn't think so! Bun noticed Kirby frolicking nearby, and went over and grabbed him by his hand. "Come on, Kirby, we're gonna be at that meeting whether they like it or not!"

* * *

 A few hours had passed. The scrap metal pile in the throne room had diminished considerably, and there currently wasn't a line of Waddle Dees running from it and back into the castle. This was a good thing, because Meta Knight wanted the meeting taking place in the throne room to be private, at least for the moment. Dedede was on his throne, Escargon standing beside him, and Memu, Parm, Fumu, and Meta Knight were standing in a loose semi-circle facing the throne. Sword and Blade were in the back of the room, guarding the doors, but they were only really there because Meta Knight was.  
  
"We are here to decide the fate of the Holy Nightmare salesman, Jin Akumu. Would anyone like to begin?" Meta Knight asked. Frankly, he would've been happy keeping their prisoner in the dungeon for however long, but there still needed to be a definite plan for what they wanted to do with him. The Star Warrior had a few things he wanted to ask Jin as well . . .

Dedede spoke first, as brash as ever. "Well, I'm the king, so I'll start! You already know my opinion of that jerk, and I say we have him executed. He'll be more trouble than he's worth if we keep him around, I just know it!" It was draconian to be sure, but Dedede didn't really care. After constantly getting ripped off and occasionally double-crossed, the king didn't feel much for Jin other than loathing. He really didn't expect anyone else to go along with his plan, though; so he just crossed his arms and waited for someone to argue against him.

Surprisingly enough, the first one to do so was Escargon. "Execution, Your Majesty? Isn't that a little extreme?" The snail's lavender coloring went paler, something the rest of the group thought was impossible. "I mean, I really don't like him either, but that's just . . ." He wrapped his arms around himself and shuddered. "And besides, who'd get the honor of escorting him to the next life? We know Sir Meta Knight here won't do it because he never listens to us anyway, his servants probably feel the same, and I don't think Waddle Doo is competent enough." The thought of Waddle Doo's ineptitude made a rather terrible image cross Escargon's mind, and he turned a little green. "I'd rather not be forced to fix things after someone botches that, thank you very much . . ."

Fumu was the next person to object to Dedede's idea. "If we kill Jin like how you're suggesting, then we're no better than Nightmare!" She paused in thought for a moment, her expression unsure. The girl wasn't on Jin's side and really didn't plan to be, but her strong sense of justice was acting up again. The situation as it was just didn't feel right to her, so she sighed a little and resumed speaking. "And speaking of Nightmare, isn't this the sort of thing he would do? Discussing someone's life without that person even being here? We should at least hear what Jin has to say for himself . . . if anything, it could help us decide what our best choice might be."

Meta Knight considered Fumu's words, his eyes faintly glowing green for a second. "Nightmare wouldn't have bothered talking about it. But you are on the right track, Fumu. If we're to have a trial, then it's only fair that the accused has a chance to defend himself. At the very least, it could be amusing." The knight ignored Fumu's annoyed glare at that last comment, and turned to the rest of the group. "Does anyone have a problem with bringing him up here?"

Dedede growled in rage, and he got up from his throne. "Hell yes, I have a problem! How are we supposed to know if anything coming out of that guy's mouth is the truth or not? He always lied to me, so what's to stop him from doing the same just to save his own hide?"

Memu stepped forward, her voice almost as chiding as it would get while scolding Bun. "Stop being so childish, Your Majesty. From what little I've seen, it was more like Jin left things out of his explanations rather than completely lying. Everyone does that every once in a while. It's your own shortcoming if you decided to take everything he said at face value. Besides, I want to hear what he might have to say . . . there has to be some good reason why a seemingly nice young man like him thought he had to sell those dreadful demon beasts." That was about the only thing Memu didn't like about Jin, that he was the one who sent all those demon beasts and put her children in danger. But with Holy Nightmare and most of the demon beasts destroyed, it was doubtful he'd be able to do that again.

Parm put himself between his wife and the king, looking apologetic. "Please, Your Majesty, forgive my dear Memu for her rudeness!" The apologetic expression didn't stay for long, though, and his gaze grew more serious. "She does have a point, however. I'd like to know why Jin did all those horrible things as well, but the only way to be sure about it is to ask him. I really don't think he'll lie about that, Your Majesty . . . I can't see him having any reason to lie at this point."

"I agree with Papa. Jin's all alone here, and he probably knows that nobody's coming to find him." Pity shone in Fumu's eyes for a moment, though it faded when she remembered just who she was feeling sorry for. "He's too smart not to realize that his only hope is being truthful with us."

Dedede sat back down, almost pouting. "All right, I can tell when I've been outvoted! Go ahead and bring him up here if you want, I don't really care anymore."

Meta Knight nodded. "Very well then . . . Sword, Blade! Retrieve our 'guest' from the dungeon."

The two knights stood at attention for a second, then headed out the door.

* * *

When Sword and Blade arrived downstairs, they found their target pacing back and forth in his cell. Jin seemed a little too lost in his thoughts to really notice the two knights were there, though.

Somewhere under that armor, Blade sort of smirked. Mischief tinged his voice as he said, "You're going to wear a track in the floor if you keep that up."

The purple haired humanoid jumped at the new sound, nervousness lining his face. When Jin looked over and saw who it was, he calmed somewhat, but when he spoke there was still some anxiety in his voice. "Please, don't do that! As for wearing this floor out, well, there's not much else to do down here. Would it be possible for someone to bring me a few books? Whatever you can find lying around would be fine, anything would be better than staring at these walls . . ."

Sword went over to the cell door and opened it. "Maybe later. Right now, you get to come with us to the throne room. Come on, let's get going . . . they probably don't want to wait all day."

Jin started to venture out of the cell, but stopped short at the door. "Wait a minute. May I ask why they need me to go up there?" The earlier incident with the king sprang to mind, and he looked pretty annoyed. "If His Majesty still thinks there's some way that I can get him demon beasts--"

Blade made a sound somewhere between a disgusted snort and a laugh. "Huh, so he did ask you that? And here I thought Sir Meta Knight was making it up. Then again, His Majesty's stupidity seems to have no bounds, so it's not really that surprising." Realizing he was getting off the subject, Blade cleared his throat and continued. "Actually, they're trying to figure out what to do with you. I guess they'd like to hear your side of things, to help them decide what's best for everyone involved."

"Really? That's not how we did things at Holy Nightmare. But if that's what they want, who am I to argue?" Jin kept his scheming smile to himself, but couldn't quite help looking slightly happier.

That comment earned a somewhat incredulous laugh from Sword. "You're going to discover a lot of things in the greater universe that are different from Holy Nightmare. You might even get to see that from outside this cell if you're lucky. Now then, let's go."

The three of them left the dungeon area and headed upstairs.

* * *

It didn't take long for Jin and his two escorts to get to the throne room. Sword and Blade led their prisoner up to the group in the center of the room, and took up guard positions behind him. Everyone else turned to look, and Jin flinched when he felt their stares center on him. It wasn't that anyone looked particularly hostile aside from Dedede, but up close interaction was a lot different from talking over a video link.

"Oh look, I think we made him nervous! Isn't that cute?" Dedede crowed. An evil smile appeared on his face, and he pointed at Jin. "Guess what, I've got something else that'll make you nervous. If I have my way, I'm going to have you executed for your crimes! How do you feel about that, huh?"

The bold announcement had the opposite effect, however. Calmness returned to Jin's features, though he didn't smile. "Am I supposed to be surprised, Your Majesty? If anything, you're playing true to form. And I'm sure I don't have to remind you how rarely it is that you actually have things your way around here . . ."

A dumbfounded expression appeared on Dedede's face, though fury quickly replaced it. "Why you--"

Meta Knight held up one hand, silencing the enraged king. "Enough." The knight turned to face Jin, his eyes glowing green again. "I take it Sword and Blade told you why we wanted to talk with you?"

Jin nodded. "Yes, it was something about all of you wanting to hear my side of the story. Well then, if you'll be more specific, I'll try to tell you what you'd like to know."

Fumu seemed to be dying to ask something, her eagerness tempered by the seriousness of the situation. "Jin, could you tell us why you served Nightmare? You seem like you could do well for yourself just about anywhere, so why'd you have to stay there?"

Jin was expecting that one or a variation of it, though that didn't make it any less hard to answer. "Why did I serve Nightmare? Well, what else was I supposed to do? Nightmare brought me into the world to run his company, that's all I was ever taught, the only thing I was meant to do. I was never really given any other options. To tell the truth, there wasn't much incentive to look for something different, either."

Fumu looked outraged. "What? Why wouldn't you try to find another way? You could've found someplace peaceful to live away from all the fighting, or maybe even joined the Galaxy Soldier Army!"

Disbelief at Fumu's naive words made it's way onto Jin's face. "It wasn't that simple, things in the real world never are. The war was everywhere and even this planet wasn't unscathed. I'm sure the ruins around here still show some evidence of all the battles. There were no truly safe places left. And joining the Galaxy Soldier Army?" He started laughing, though it was a touch more bitter than his usual laughter. "Just look at me . . . what you see is basically all there is. Yes, I am a demon, but I have no powers besides being able to sense other demon beasts and Star Warriors. I'm not strong enough to do much besides running computers. What use would the Galaxy Soldier Army have for a demon who couldn't fight?" Anger and old pain surfaced in his voice. "Besides, the Star Warriors killed someone I cared about . . . working for them was out of the question."

Seeing as Fumu was at a loss for words, Meta Knight was the next to speak. "Yes, the war was terrible for all involved. All those people and planets lost, and for what? But tell me, Jin, was there ever any time that you questioned Nightmare's motives? Even if it was just for a moment?"

Jin looked shocked at the question and almost immediately launched into a denial. "No, I'd never--" Something made him stop short and actually think about it, though. Maybe it was from being on the receiving end of Meta Knight's stare, or from having all those people around, but he took a moment to go sifting through the depths of his memory. Jin's voice was distant when he finally spoke again. "No, wait; there was one time. I was just a child then. I asked him why we were attacking planets and enslaving people . . . he only said 'Because I want to.'" Remembered fear cut into his speech, and for a second it seemed he was a little too lost in the memory. "H-he was angry that I asked him why. He tried to hide it a little as I was young and didn't know better, but he was still furious . . . that was one of the few times I was truly frightened of him. I wanted to please my father, to make him happy, so I never asked again."

A faint note of surprise was noticeable in Meta Knight's voice, but he otherwise didn't react. "I see. Well then, everyone; you've heard what he had to say. Does anyone think they can make a decision now, or would it be better to wait for a while?"

Dedede was still sort of pouting. "Well, I already made my decision, but nobody ever listens to me . . ."

Escargon closed his eyes and considered things for a moment, but when he opened them again he simply shook his head. "No, I can't, not right now anyway. It'll be better to wait, maybe then we can come up with something suitable . . ."

Fumu was still reeling a little from getting that nice dose of reality to counteract her rampant idealism. Her voice was quiet when she spoke. "I need more time to think . . ."

Parm's expression was thoughtful. He was the one who knew most of Dream Land's laws, but there was nothing like this situation at all in the precedents. Still, Jin never had a choice . . . but maybe they could give him one. It would depend on a number of factors, though, so the Cabinet Minister decided to wait and see what the others' ideas were. "I have an inkling of an idea, but it'll have to wait for a while too."

Memu just sort of sighed. "Well, after hearing that, I can't think of anything right now either." Something seemed to be bothering her, though, and she looked straight at Jin. "I'm sorry if it seems like we're talking as if you aren't here. It's just how this sort of thing ends up going, I guess."

Meta Knight regarded the group, his eyes staying relatively neutral aside for a quick flicker of green. "Well then, that's everyone. Yes, I do have a few ideas of my own, but they'll have to wait as well." The knight turned to face Jin. "In the meantime, you'll have to stay in the dungeon. You understand, don't you?"

Jin frowned a little, but otherwise didn't react. "Yes, I understand. I really don't like it, but I understand why. Not that I would try to escape; there's nowhere else to go, and I wouldn't get very far anyway. You knights would see to that, I'm sure."

Meta Knight seemed somewhat pleased to hear that. "It's always nice to have a prisoner who knows there's really no point in running. That rarely happened during the war." Having said that, he looked to his two servants. "Sword, Blade, let's get going. There's something I need to do in the basement, so I'll come with you." With a swish of his cape, Meta Knight headed out the door. Sword and Blade took up their escort positions again, leading Jin along and following their master.

* * *

The trip back downstairs was largely uneventful. Meta Knight led the way, Jin was in the middle, and Sword and Blade followed behind. It would have remained uneventful, that is, if Meta Knight hadn't decided to take a slight detour.

Jin noticed almost immediately and looked uneasy about it. He didn't stop walking, though. "Wait, my cell is in the other direction, isn't it? Why are we going this way?"

"I want to find something out. But to do that, we'll have to go over here for a few minutes . . ." Meta Knight trailed off ominously, and continued leading the way to what looked like just another cell.

Well, it would've been just another cell, if not for the device in the center of the room. There were three pole-like machines ringing a metal table, with a control panel off to the side. Just looking at it made a chill go down Jin's spine, and yet it still seemed familiar somehow. Remembrance came quickly afterwards, and he tried to turn and bolt, only to be grabbed by the robot arm in the ceiling. He struggled to free himself for a minute, but gave up when it wasn't letting go. Jin wondered if he looked as pathetic as he sounded as he said, "Please don't hurt me . . ."

Meta Knight's eyes glowed slightly pink, and a small chuckle escaped him. "You know what this thing is, do you?"

Yes, Jin knew what the machine was. There was even one just like it back at the fortress. Knowing full well what it was capable of, his voice was fearful. "I should . . . I'm the one who s-sold it to His Majesty."

Meta Knight's eyes returned to their normal color, though the amusement remained in his voice. "Quite ironic that something I'm so fond of was made by Holy Nightmare. I haven't had much chance to use it lately, but as there's something I'd like to know . . ."

Jin cringed at that, his voice still shaking. "Y-you don't have to do this, you know. Anything you need to know about Holy Nightmare, anything at all, just let me go and I'll tell you. With Nightmare gone, there's nothing standing in the way."

Meta Knight just shook his head. "That could be useful later, but not right now. What I want to know could be repressed or sealed somehow . . . how can you tell me something that you're not truly aware of consciously? If it's any consolation, I'll try not to hurt you unnecessarily. Now then, let's begin." He tapped the control for the robot arm and it moved again, depositing it's cargo on the table in the center of the room. Another button press and the shackles clicked into place over Jin's wrists and feet. "Tell me, did Nightmare ever talk to you about any backup plans he might have had?"

"Backup plans? Why would he need one of those? He certainly didn't expect Kirby to win--" Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, and Jin's next words died in a howl of pain. Electricity coursed through him for a few seconds, and when it stopped he was shaking and gasping for breath.

Slight irritation made itself known in Meta Knight's voice. "Don't try to change the subject, just answer the question. Do you know of any of Nightmare's backup plans? Even a detail that might've seemed insignificant to you at the time could be useful."

Jin was still panting a little from the first zap, but somehow managed to get a reply out between breaths. "I don't know . . . I can't remember." The pain was making his memory go a little fuzzy but even so, he couldn't recall ever being told about any plans for Nightmare to come back somehow and take revenge. The demon knew he was probably going to pay for his next words, but he said them anyway. "If there were any plans, do you really think I'd still be stuck here? After all this, I'd even volunteer to pilot a Destrayer and try to properly kill you all--" Electrical discharge sounded in the room again, immediately followed by Jin screaming in agony. It felt like every nerve in his body was firing off it's 'pain' signal at once, and he struggled weakly with his restraints, wanting to get away.

Meta Knight hadn't really risen to the bait, the timing of his button press only made it seem that way. That's what he would say to Sword and Blade if they asked, anyway. He still sounded annoyed with not getting a real answer, though. "There's no need to be like that. Are you sure you can't remember, or is it that you just don't want to tell me?"

Pain and desperation can make one's mind do strange things. Such was the case for Jin, and a old memory long buried broke free to haunt him once again. His voice was hoarse when he spoke, though that still didn't cover up the slightly whining tone it took on. "I don't have anything to tell! He wouldn't tell me anything . . . he thought I might get caught by Star Warriors again . . ."

Meta Knight startled at this, his own memory conflicting with Jin's words. If he'd ever ran into someone remotely looking like the former salesman, he thought he'd remember it. Something about it was bothering him, though. "I don't recall ever running into you . . . and if one of the other Star Warriors did I probably would've been told about it."

"You did, though. It was over 300 years ago, but I still remember everything . . ." Old fears threatened to run rampant, and Jin took a few deep breaths to try and calm himself. "Do you know, Sir Meta Knight, how terrifying you were that day?"

* * *

It was a fairly typical day at Holy Nightmare Corporation's main control room, and a much younger Jin sat in a chair next to the delivery system console. He probably wasn't much older than Fumu at the time, maybe around ten or so, and actually needed the chair to be able to reach all the buttons. The little guy was actually kind of cute at that age, something of a contradiction given what he'd end up looking like as an adult. His purple hair was in a slightly scruffier style than it would be later on, but he still wore a smaller version of his trademark suit. He'd just finished his training for the day (which thankfully had little in common with the training most demon beasts get), and was working on an assignment with a bored expression on his face. There was a storage crate sitting on the teleporter, and with a button press and a bleep, the delivery system flared to life and the crate disappeared. Jin waited about 30 seconds, then hit another button. Another flash of light and the crate reappeared. The young demon repeated this process about three times, then leaned back in his chair and yawned.

"'Practice using the delivery system', he said. Does he have any idea how boring this is?" Jin's voice still had the squeakiness of youth, though at the moment that was somewhat overshadowed by his whining at being bored. "I almost wish something would happen . . ."

At this point, Jin was a little too young to realize that fate had a nasty habit of answering him, usually for the worse. As he sent the crate on another round trip, alarms sounded and the delivery system powered down, The crate didn't reappear, meaning it was at it's destination or lost in the ether of the internet. 'SYSTEM ERROR' flashed in big red letters on the screen in front of him, along with a readout of what went wrong.

"Oh, crap! It's not supposed to do that!" Trying not to panic, Jin reached for the button to kill the alarms. Normally he didn't swear even to himself, it just wasn't proper; but this took him by surprise. And what happens if Nightmare found out he broke the delivery system? He had to force the panic back even further, and took a good look at the screen. "Let's see, what does it say . . . 'Part number 67482 has burned out: replace and reboot system.' If that's all it is, I can fix this myself." After taking one last look at the screen to confirm just where a replacement part should go, Jin hopped out of his chair.

The young system admin in training rummaged around underneath one of the consoles and retrieved a toolkit, then climbed up onto the teleport pad in the center of the room. The location of the damaged part was in a fairly odd place, under a nearly invisible panel on the floor of the teleporter. Jin used a thin tool to wedge it open, and there was the offending part, a burnt out piece of circuitry that was still smoking a little. He removed it and tossed it aside, dug in the toolkit for a replacement, and then clicked the new part into place. The little boy was about to step off the teleporter, but it suddenly powered up again and cycled to 'send' mode. Unfortunately, the delivery system was currently set to auto-reboot and do a random test of a link in it's database when it encountered an error, and he'd just gotten caught up in it. He barely got out a squawk of surprise before he vanished from the room.

Jin appeared in the bitstream leading to wherever he was being sent, and almost tried to swim against the energy flow when he realized what was going on. It wasn't doing much but making him tired, so he stopped and let the current take him. The flashing lights and patterns around him caught his eye and distracted him a little, and he watched those for a while. It was oddly beautiful . . . he just wished it was taking him the other way. The look on his face changed to one of dread. Jin had never left the fortress before, and had no idea what was waiting for him at the other end of the delivery system. Things started getting a whole lot brighter around him; it was pretty obvious the trip was ending, and the frightened child braced himself for arrival in a strange new place.

On a distant planet in a burned out and ruined castle, a delivery system pad powered up and crackled to life. It was about the only thing unscathed in a grand throne room. Even if it was undamaged, the device was sitting idle for a long time, and as such, took longer to activate than a constantly used system might. Once it did, Jin appeared about a foot above the teleport pad in a flash of light and landed with a thud.

"Oww . . . where am I?" Jin whined as he stood up, looking around the area nervously. The burned out throne room looked vaguely familiar and it didn't take him long to remember why. It was a planet Holy Nightmare had done business with, at least until Nightmare decided to finally stop fooling around and attack a few weeks prior. All the people that lived in the castle were either captured or dead, and Jin was almost glad. Being in a strange place was bad enough, he didn't want to deal with angry natives too. Although what he would have to deal with weren't exactly natives to the planet . . . he heard voices outside the room and he froze.

"Hey, I'm getting a life sign over here now! You sure this thing's actually working?" Voice number one sounded gruff and bored. It was like he couldn't be bothered with doing whatever it was, and would rather be doing something else.

Voice number two was female and a little softer. "Yes, it's working, I tested it at the base this morning!" She sounded fairly exasperated with the situation as well, but seemed to hide it better than her counterpart. "I don't get it either though . . . we were just in there and it didn't pick up anything. Wanna do one more sweep just to be sure, Xelcan?"

Voice number one, apparently named Xelcan, spoke again. He still sounded bored, though maybe a little less than earlier. "Yeah, sure, what the hell? It's not like we have anything else to do until Meta Knight decides to get the drop ship and pick us up. And I know you want to see if our mysterious life sign is hurt or not, Shirei . . . you're too much of a medic at heart not to."

Shirei seemed proud of being called a medic. "What can I say, it's what they trained me as first. This sniper crap came later. Well then, shall we go?"

Jin heard footsteps heading in the direction of the throne room, and jumped off the teleporter in search of a place to hide, With all the rubble strewn about the room, he had plenty of choices, but he wanted to be able to see the doorway. Finally deciding on hiding underneath the overturned throne, the young demon scrambled into position and waited for the two people to enter the room.

The one named Xelcan stepped into the throne room first, holding a portable scanner. He looked like little more than a metal ball with feet and eyes, though his eyes were covered by a flashy set of sunglasses. He had a scabbard with a sword attached to him with what looked like a magnet, as well as a star pin that showed he was a member of the Galaxy Soldier Army. He looked around the room and shook his head, which was more like shaking his entire body. "Man, they sure did a number on this place. After so many kingdoms and planets destroyed, you'd think these stupid dictators would figure out that buying from Nightmare is a BAD idea . . ."

Shirei followed her associate inside. She was a lot taller than Xelcan as she was an Avian, one of the tallest races in that part of the galaxy. Her feathers were mostly pink, though the dark clothing she wore contrasted with that. She had a long rifle with a high tech scope strapped to her back, a necessary tool when it came to her main job of taking out enemies from afar. She also wore a Galaxy Soldier Army star pin, and it served as a belt buckle. The Avian just sort of sighed at Xelcan's comments. "Darkness attracts darkness, you know that. If he didn't destroy everything else, I'd almost say Nightmare was doing the galaxy a favor by getting rid of some of these scumbags. Now then, where's that life sign gotten to?"

Xelcan waved the scanner around the room. The scanner beeped a few times, but it beeped the loudest when pointed in the direction of the upended throne in the rear of the room. "It's over here, I think." He started heading in that direction, but stopped short when he heard a whimper come from underneath the throne. "Yeah, definitely over here. All right, whoever you are, you can come out now! We won't hurt you unless you try to do the same to us, I promise."

Jin really didn't want to come out. Those two were with the GSA, after all; who knew what sort of things they'd do to a helpless little demon like himself? Then again, it didn't seem like the two of them realized what he was just from the scan data. And that Xelcan said they wouldn't hurt him, right? Taking a deep breath to get his courage up, Jin poked his head out from his hiding place, messing up his hair a little in the process. He glanced at Xelcan, then at Shirei, and then he crawled the whole way into the open. He stood up, adjusting his sunglasses nervously. "Y-you really won't hurt me? Really?"

Shirei had been bracing herself for any potential threats, but her somewhat stern expression softened when the mysterious life sign turned out to be a scared little boy. Knowing her height could be intimidating, she got down on one knee before speaking. "Aww, why would we want to hurt a cute little guy like you?"

Xelcan sort of snorted in amusement. "Cute? I don't know, something seems a little too off for me to think he's cute."

Shirei glared at her friend. "Meh, you tin cans from Mekkai don't think anything organic is cute." She turned to face Jin again, the feathers on her crest bouncing a little from the movement. "Ignore my metal friend over there, kid, he doesn't know his posterior unit from a hole in the ground. But yeah, we're the good guys, we're not going to hurt you. You're not injured already though, are you? It's a little hard to tell from over here. You could come a little closer if you want, I could get a better look at you that way."

Jin tried not to flinch at the 'good guys' comment and otherwise didn't move. He didn't want to get any closer to them than he had to. "N-no, I'm fine. I'll just stay over here, thanks . . ."

Xelcan was starting to get suspicious of Jin's nervousness, and had to try hard to keep from reaching for his sword. "Something's weird here, Shirei . . . usually if we tell them that, they don't get more nervous. Hey, kid, who are you, really?"

Before Jin could even attempt to stammer out some kind of answer, a faint metallic clattering caught their attention. Someone wearing armor was heading that direction, and it didn't take them long to appear in the doorway. It turned out to be a certain masked blue puffball, also wearing a GSA star pin. He wore a scabbard as well, but the sword was already in his hand. He looked around the room, golden eyes keen for any possible threats.

Shirei glanced back at the newcomer in surprise. "Sir Meta Knight? What are you doing back already?"

Meta Knight seemed to ignore her question. "Shirei, Xelcan, are you two all right? I sensed a demon beast in the area all of a sudden--" He stopped short when he realized his sixth sense was still screaming a warning, and looked straight at Jin. "It's still here! Get away from that thing, soldiers, it's probably trying to trick you!"

Shirei and Xelcan startled as one and jumped backwards a little. It was the Avian who spoke. "He's a demon beast? I'll take your word for it, sir . . . you wouldn't think Nightmare would make them that young, though."

Jin still hadn't moved from where he stood, He looked at them all with apprehension, though actually seeing the legendary Meta Knight surprised him. The most dangerous Star Warrior in existence should be taller, shouldn't he? That thought faded quickly as his own sixth sense kicked in, and an overwhelming feeling of dread and terror swept over him. He'd trained enough to know what sensing a Star Warrior felt like, but controlling his reaction when he did was something he needed to work on. The terrified demon backed up against the overturned throne, whimpering. "S-star Warrior . . ."

Meta Knight nodded to himself, Jin's reaction only confirming his feelings. "There, you see. He knows what I am without anyone telling him, and only a demon beast would react with such fear. Although that fear and his appearance could be just an illusion . . . an illusion I'm about to dispel!" The Star Warrior's eyes glowed brighter for a second, and he swept his sword in a forward arc, unleashing a devastating Sword Beam. This one was fairly low powered, but it was more than enough for what he needed. The Sword Beam swept past Jin, missing him by millimeters, and cut the remains of the throne behind him in half.

Abject fear kept Jin frozen in place for a second. After a moment, his feet gave way underneath him, and he dropped to the floor. A loud sob escaped the frightened child, and then another, until he finally curled up in a ball and started crying hysterically.

Xelcan was the first to say something, looking at Meta Knight with half a glare. "Well, that was anti-climactic."

Shirei was a little more angry about it, finding it hard to believe a Star Warrior could be so cold. Her tone was outraged to say the least. "That was uncalled for, Sir Meta Knight! Even if he's a demon beast, he's still only a child!"

Meta Knight wasn't phased by this in the slightest. His voice was dismissive, with sort of a know it all tone thrown in there. "We wouldn't have known that for sure if I hadn't tried to spook him. But even if it's a child, it's still a demon beast. I am wondering why Nightmare made such a useless one, though; even the youngest ones usually have some sort of power to attack with."

Xelcan just shrugged. "Even Nightmare makes mistakes, though in his case sometimes it's literally. Half the time he throws them out like so much trash. We've actually been running into a lot of those lately, maybe he's just another one."

Though Jin was still curled up and sobbing, he was listening to their conversation as well. Being called a mistake cut through his fear, and he managed to look up at the three warriors in front of him. He was still scared and crying a little, but pride demanded that the young demon couldn't let that pass. "I-I'm not a mistake! Nightmare said I'd be really useful once I finish my training . . . he wouldn't throw me out!"

Meta Knight's eyes glowed pink for a second. "My, my; prideful little thing, aren't you?" His eye color changed again, this time darkening to red. The knight brought his sword into an attack position, possibly getting ready to unleash another Sword Beam. "But if he thinks you'll be so useful, I should probably end your life right here." His unfortunate target cringed at this and started crying again.

Before Meta Knight could do anything else, the scanner that Xelcan was still holding started beeping crazily. The metal warrior regarded the scanner's readout and tried to keep the anxiety out of his voice. "Um, sir, this thing just sprouted a whole crapload of other readings! 20 more life signs heading this way and fast . . . wait a minute, 20? Isn't that about the size of one of Nightmare's planet clearing squads?" One of the blips on the scanner's screen got a sudden boost in speed, whatever it was would be on them in seconds. "Oh man, we're about to have company!"

An unholy screech pierced the silence, and what looked like one of Nightmare's gray dragons burst through the doorway, reducing what was left of the great doors to kindling. It wasn't one of Nightmare's dragons, though; this one had horns on it's head and no spines, and it's front feet ended in wickedly sharp claws. It also had a more graceful appearance. The dragon looked around, glaring down at the three warriors, but she didn't seem surprised at seeing Jin cowering in the back of the room. "I knew my hearing wasn't deceiving me! Making a little boy cry, you Galaxy Soldier Army scum should be ashamed of yourselves! Jin, I don't know how you ended up here, but don't worry, it's okay now. I'll just deal with these trifles and then we can go home, all right?"

On hearing the dragon speak, Jin looked up at her and actually managed a smile despite how upset he still was. "Alya! Be careful, Alya, the blue one's a Star Warrior!"

Alya the dragon seemed to smirk at this. "A Star Warrior, huh? This'll be more fun than I thought!" At this she opened her mouth, revealing rows of razor sharp teeth, then she breathed lightning at the three GSA warriors. Xelcan and Meta Knight managed to dodge, but Shirei got caught in the blast. The force of it bounced the Avian off one of the walls, she slid to the ground finally and didn't get back up. Shirei probably wasn't dead, but she wouldn't be getting back up for a while, either.

Not that the other two fighters knew that. "Shirei! You'll pay for that, you beast!" Xelcan roared in rage and drew his sword, charging at Alya for revenge. The dragon humored the enraged fighter for a while by parrying his sword strikes with her claws, but eventually got bored and swatted him aside with her tail. Xelcan landed a little better than Shirei had earlier, managing to kick off the wall he was heading for instead of slamming into it. He landed beside Meta Knight, looking worried. "Man, that was stupid of me . . . think you could hit her with a Sword Beam, boss? We're not gonna win otherwise!"

Meta Knight was already in the process of letting loose a Sword Beam long before Xelcan even thought of it. He flicked the deadly energy in the general direction of Alya's head, but startled when she only smiled at the incoming beam of death. That's when the dragon started glowing bright enough to obscure her form. She started to shrink too, the Sword Beam flying well over her as she did. But Alya wasn't so much shrinking as she was changing. What used to be a gigantic dragon eventually settled into a humanoid form not quite as tall as an Avian, but still much taller than Xelcan or Meta Knight. As the glow finally faded, the two warriors got a good look at Alya's new form. She looked similar to Fumu's race, or maybe Silica's race would be a better description. Her skin was pale, though not pure white, and long blond hair cascaded from her head. She wore a somewhat nondescript set of light armor, and fingerless gloves. She seemed like a relatively normal woman, except for the horns curling back slightly from the top of her head, her pointed ears, and the set of dragon wings on her back.

Meta Knight nearly dropped his sword in shock, but managed to hang onto it. His voice was full of disbelief. "You . . . you're a Dracan. Why would a member of such an honorable race serve Nightmare?!"

Alya's green eyes had a jaded look to them, as if she was really tired of answering that question. "Hmph, it's because everyone else isn't honorable. Across the stars, my kind are persecuted and enslaved for what we are . . . it's not like that at Holy Nightmare. It's one of the few places I've actually felt welcomed to in a long time." She smiled then, but her eyes didn't quite reflect it. "And just to prove how honorable I am, I'm going to give you a choice. You fools are going to be outnumbered in a minute, and with one of you incapacitated already I don't need to tell you what your odds are. You have two options. One: stay and fight me, in which case you'll be overrun by my associates and die horribly, or be captured and turned by Nightmare. Two: you get out of my way and run for your pathetic little lives. I suggest you do this, it's the best option for everyone here. You won't die, and I won't have to worry about the little one over there getting caught in the fighting."

Meta Knight considered Alya's words, his eyes glowing a faint green. She was right, of course. Even with the advantage of being a Star Warrior, he and Xelcan would still be overwhelmed by 19 demon beasts and a Dracan. The knight had far too many things to accomplish before he died, so his choice was more or less already made. Meta Knight headed over to where Shirei had fallen. "Xelcan, we're leaving. Help me get Shirei to the drop ship."

Xelcan hesitated at first. "What? We're trusting that witch after what she did to Shirei? How do we know she's really going to let us go?"

Meta Knight pinned the other GSA fighter with a glare. "This Alya will keep her word, because she is Dracan. Besides, her duty as a guardian takes far more priority than any desire she might have to kill us all."

Alya startled slightly at that last comment, but then just smiled a little. "Very observant, Star Warrior. Only someone as attentive to battle as yourself would've noticed I was holding back. Though if you pushed the issue, all three of you would be dead right now. Well then, get out of here . . . we all have our duties to fulfill, after all."

With that, Meta Knight and Xelcan collected the unconscious Shirei and headed for the exit. The Star Warrior paused for a second, but then thought better of it and continued on his way. He wouldn't thank Alya, as she would probably try her hardest to kill him if they ever crossed paths again.

Alya watched them go for a moment, then turned her attention to Jin, who was sitting there quietly except for the occasional sniffle. She made her way over to him and asked, "Jin, are you all right? That mean old Star Warrior didn't hurt you, did he?"

Jin managed to stand up, though his sniffling got louder. He was still too upset to really give her an answer, and he started crying. The young demon ran up to Alya and started clinging to her in a death grip, sobbing into her clothing.

With a sigh, Alya scooped up Jin and held him close, trying to comfort him. "Well, that answers that question . . . you've just had a good scare, that's all. Shh, it's all right, those scary GSA fools are gone now. We'll go home in a few minutes, just as soon as the rest of my squad gets here."

It didn't take long for the rest of Alya's squad of demon beasts to arrive after that. Most of the 19 demon beasts were of the smaller variety, though there were a few dragons and other bigger ones thrown in there. There was a KittariHattari there for distractions too, and he was the one who approached Alya first. "So, this is why you took off? Our little commander in training . . . how the hell did he get here, anyway?"

Alya glanced at the still intact teleporter pad. She was a little surprised that her lightning attack earlier hadn't damaged it."I'd imagine via that thing. I'm hoping it still works, since the transport ship will take a few days to get back, and I'd really like to get him home as soon as I can. You see a working control panel around here anywhere?"

The demon beasts turned that burned out throne room upside down looking for a functioning control panel, eventually finding one along one of the walls. KittariHattari looked happy at the find. "Found one!" He clomped over to it and poked a few buttons, regarding the small display set into the panel. "Looks like it's kinda low on power, but there should be enough for one more trip to the fortress. I can get it ready for you if you'd like, Alya."

"Yes, go ahead. I don't know the first thing about running the delivery system." At that, Alya looked down at the still sobbing child she held. Jin was starting to calm down, but it'd still be a while before he was coherent enough to do much. Alya shifted his weight into her left arm, while she reached up with her right and stroked his hair gently. "Jin here knows how, but he's in no shape to at the moment. As far as the mission goes, I think you can finish up without me. Nearly everything on this planet is dead or dying at this point. I'd tell you to come with me in the delivery system, but heck, someone has to take the ship back! Yeah, mop up and then come home; I'll see you there in a few days."

After some more poking of buttons and a few beeps from the console, KittariHattari got the delivery system to power up. The mechanical demon beast turned towards Alya again. "From the orbital scans alone, there's nothing left here. Even with half our numbers, this would be a breeze. Go on, get going; we'll catch up later."

With that, Alya flapped her wings a few times, just enough so she could glide onto the transporter pad. She certainly wasn't going to be able to jump up there while carrying Jin. On landing, her friend at the controls activated the device, and in a flash of light, the Dracan and her charge vanished.

The trip back across the internet and to the fortress was short, not that Jin really took notice. He was finally quiet, and yawned a little before trying to make himself more comfortable in Alya's grip. Stress completely sapped what little energy reserves the young demon had, and he'd likely fall asleep within a few minutes of arriving back home.

Alya and Jin appeared on the fortress's delivery system pad with another flashy light show, and found themselves surrounded by a small army of confused techs. They'd been alerted when the delivery system threw that first error message, but didn't get there in time to see Jin's not so grand exit. They'd been analyzing the log files and were about to dismiss the error as a false alarm, but that's when the system powered up and the demon and the Dracan appeared. Alya just glared at them. "All right, out of the way! Jin can try and explain what happened later, right now the poor guy needs a nap." The techs got out of her path at the order, and Alya hopped down from the pad, still carrying Jin.

Alya was nearly to the exit leading to the elevators, when she heard one of the monitors she passed turn on. She turned around and sure enough, Nightmare was on it, the image of him in the center of the screen looking down at her. After a moment, the Emperor of Darkness spoke to her. "So, you've brought him back, have you? Good. Losing him would've interfered with my plans more than I'm willing to tolerate."

The Dracan debated on breathing lightning at the monitor, but thought better of it. Alya settled on looking annoyed instead. "You and your plans . . ." She thought about Nightmare's words for a second and got an idea, though. "But speaking of plans, if you're going to have me do missions now, I can't be around to protect Jin all the time. Maybe you could make him another guardian, sort of as a pet or something. I know you've been working on a couple of new demon beasts, you could use one of those."

If you looked hard enough at the monitor, you could see one of Nightmare's eyebrows twitch. "I'll think about it."

The monitor shut off again, but Alya was already walking away. By the time she stepped into one of the elevators, Jin was sound asleep. Hearing Nightmare's voice finally made the little demon feel safe enough to drift off . . .

* * *

Jin tried to remain an objective adult while telling the story, though with all that childhood fear attached it was a little hard. Still, the memory had been partially suppressed, and recalling it was sort of draining. He laid there on the table watching Meta Knight, wondering if the knight actually believed him.

After a minute, Meta Knight said something, his eyes glowing faintly. "Ah yes, now I remember. You look nothing like you did as a child, that's why I was having a hard time thinking I've run into you before."

"Well, do you look the same as you did when you were a child?" Jin remembered something amusing about that and grinned. "Though I'm willing to hazard a guess as to what you looked like . . . you looked just like Kirby when you were younger, didn't you?"

It took most of Meta Knight's ability to look nonchalant to keep himself from startling at that. His voice was cool when he spoke, neither confirming or denying Jin's suspicions. "And what makes you think that?"

Jin took a second to think about it, his grin not really fading. "Even with that mask, you still look similar to the pink ball. That and Nightmare told me once that he based Kirby off of whatever species you are."

Meta Knight just sighed. "I just can't win, can I? I suggest you don't tell anyone else about this; it'll be bad for your health if you do."

Before Jin even had a chance to look nervous at Meta Knight's words, there was a commotion out in the hallway. Sword and Blade were standing watch out there, trying to make sure Fumu or anyone else didn't bother Meta Knight while he was working. Unfortunately, a certain penguin monarch had wandered into the basement and seemed to have issues with that.

Dedede glared at the two knights, but he didn't get his mallet out to swat them aside. Well, not yet, anyway. "Come on, get out of my way! Your boss is using something of mine down here without permission. I heard our weasel of a prisoner screaming the whole way from the throne room; if Meta Knight's going to have some fun with him, I want to watch at least!"

Sword tried to keep Dedede from going any further. "Your Majesty, Sir Meta Knight is busy--"

The king just shoved Sword aside, and continued on his way. Dedede stepped into the cell, and on taking in the scene, he just grinned evilly. "Having fun without me, Meta Knight? Now that's just rude. You could've at least let your king get the first shot at torturing him!"

Meta Knight sounded annoyed. "This is interrogation, Your Majesty. While it may involve causing some pain, it's not without purpose. Besides, I'm finished anyway. Jin didn't know anything about what I asked, and anything else I want to know probably won't require as much persuasion."

Dedede looked disappointed. "Aw, that's no fun!" The king sensed a potential opportunity, though, and grinned evilly again. "Come on, Meta Knight, one more zap probably won't kill him. Move over and let me have a try; you can think of it as making up for being such a disloyal servant!"

Jin tensed at Dedede's words, but didn't outright panic or start fighting with his restraints. The exhaustion that was starting to show on his face was just too much, and he'd be lucky to walk back to his cell without help, let alone try to break free. Also, the former salesman observed Meta Knight and Dedede's interactions with each other almost from the beginning, and past behavior showed that the knight would refuse. The armored puffball could be very unpredictable if he wanted to be, though, so Jin still started bracing himself for another round of shocks.

Meta Knight would play true to form, however. "Disloyal? That's ridiculous. Why would I have to make up for something like that?" The knight pressed a button sequence and the machine audibly powered down. There was a faint click and the shackles holding Jin in place came open, retracting into the table a second later.

Jin just laid there for half a minute before attempting to slide off the table. He was unsteady on his feet, but managed to keep his balance somehow. The demon smirked a little at Dedede. "Well, better luck next time, Your Majesty."

Dedede absolutely lost it. "All right, that's it! I don't need that stupid machine, I'm just gonna clobber you myself!" The king went charging towards Jin, who lost his balance and ended up on the floor when he tried to run away.

Meta Knight had a split second to make a choice. He could let Dedede attack Jin, in which case the demon would be hurt badly, or he could stop the king somehow. The knight hated the two of them equally; but at the moment Dedede was being slightly more annoying. Meta Knight stuck one foot out in front of Dedede, making the king trip and land on his face.

Dedede picked himself off the floor, glaring back at Meta Knight. "Why you little--"

The armored puffball only pointed at the many wires strewn across the floor of the room. Meta Knight's eyes glowed pink for a fraction of a second as he said, "You really should have Escargon see about making those wires a little neater. It'd make it a little safer to walk around in here."

Dedede sputtered in rage, but eventually settled on storming out of the cell. He looked back at them one last time and growled, "You're both gonna pay for this. I don't know how yet, but you're gonna pay!", then stomped out of the room.

Meta Knight just shook his head as he watched Dedede leave, then turned to face Jin, who'd managed to stand up again. "You know, you really shouldn't do that when you're in no condition to run."

Jin just laughed a little tiredly. "It's a force of habit, I guess. Annoying His Majesty is just too fun. But speaking of which, I saw you trip him right there. I might have been a little spooked but I still saw it. Why would you do that?"

Meta Knight's eyes glowered red for a moment. "Since when do I have to explain myself to you?"

Jin looked nervous at that but otherwise didn't react much. "Not feeling talkative? That's all right, it goes with your image, I suppose." He idly looked around the room and sighed. "Well then, I take it we're done here? I think I can walk back without help . . ." As he said that, he tried taking a step forward and nearly fell over. He had to reach over and brace himself against the table to stay on his feet. "Or maybe not. Blast it all, I hate being so weak!"

Meta Knight's voice was thoughtful as he spoke. "Well, we can't all be strong. The world's probably better off that way." He glanced at the other knights, who were standing in the doorway. "Sword, Blade! Jin's going to need some help getting back to his cell. You probably don't need to carry him, just keep him from falling. After you finish with that, we'll get to the evening patrol." With a swish of his cape, Meta Knight left the room, leaving his two servants to their task.

Sword and Blade entered the cell and walked up to Jin, Sword standing to his right and Blade to his left. The two knights got ready to hold him up and Blade asked, "You ready?"

Jin had an embarrassed expression on his face. "Yes, I'm ready. This is so humiliating."

Sword spoke up, his voice sounding almost as embarrassed as Jin was. "Yeah, we know. But it's either this or leaving you in here, so let's get going. Besides, it's Sir Meta Knight's orders, and I'm not going to disobey him."

The three of them managed to get started on their way. It was slow going, with Sword or Blade having to hold Jin up when he lost his balance, but they made steady progress. It took them around five minutes to get to the other cell, and the two knights even helped Jin over to his bed. After doing that, they left the cell and locked the door behind them. Jin watched them leave and yawned. After a second he laid down and pulled the thin sheet over himself, and tried to get to sleep. It would take a while, but sleep still came faster to him than the previous night.

 


	4. Dungeon Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first part of what was originally chapter 3 . . . in which Jin spends about a month in Castle Dedede's dungeon.

A week had passed, and for that entire week, the same thought had come to Jin on waking to an unfamiliar ceiling. Today would be no exception. Where was he? He sat up in bed and looked around confusedly, but as he woke up more, he remembered what happened and just sighed a little. At least that was better than the first two days, where he'd gotten out of bed and demanded the nearest Waddle Dee to tell him where he was and why he was down there. That only confused the Dees, and their language barrier kept them from answering Jin properly anyway. The purple-haired demon prided himself on his knowledge of the languages in that area of the galaxy, but he still couldn't understand a word of Waddle Dee.

Yawning, Jin pulled himself out of bed and wandered over to his cell door. He looked up and down the hallway for a second, wondering if he'd see anyone other than a Waddle Dee that day. Wait, he didn't care if he only saw those little things . . . they were a lot less irritating than the other people around. With that thought, he started to turn away from the hall, but that's when he heard a “Poyo!” off in the distance.

Kirby came almost skipping down the corridor, as perky as ever. The pink puff had shown up in the dungeon just about every other day to visit Jin, oblivious to the demon's general hatred of him. Kirby was likewise oblivious of the glare Jin was aiming at him, and he stepped up to the bars with a greeting. “Poyo poyo!”

Jin just kept glaring. He didn't know why Kirby kept appearing to see him, he just wished the puffball would go away. His sixth sense was already starting to bother him with Kirby's conflicting reading of Star Warrior and demon beast. Oddly enough, the unsettled feeling didn't have as much of an edge to it as it would if he was staring at Meta Knight. The faint traces that marked Kirby as one of Nightmare's creations were one of the few things that still seemed familiar to Jin, so maybe that's why it didn't seem so bad. That might be the reason why he kept coming back . . . the puffball sensed something somewhat familiar about him and wanted to be friendly. Forgiveness was the last thing on Jin's mind, though. Nightmare's passing was still far too fresh, the hate in his voice showing that better than anything else. “Kirby. So you've come back again, have you? I really don't know why you keep trying; my feelings aren't going to change.”

Kirby blinked in confusion, not really understanding why Jin was so hostile. “Poyo?”

Jin kept talking, anger and pain fueling his words. “Tell me, you foolish little puffball, do you even understand that you've killed your own father? No, I'd imagine not . . . the only thing you really understand or care about is food. It's hard to believe such a simple minded creature could defeat Nightmare. It's almost an insult, really. A failed creation like yourself couldn't possibly be that strong!” The demon started pacing along the length of his cell, lost in thought. “I still don't understand how you managed it. I'm not sure if I ever will at this point, there's just too many things about your victory that are unknown.” Jin turned to face Kirby again, sadness softening his next words. “Why did you have to be the one to walk away?”

Kirby had tears in his purple eyes. He still didn't understand, but Jin being so upset was making him sad. “Poyo . . .” The pink puff ran off after that, wanting to find Fumu. She'd make things better like always.

Jin was left standing there alone. After a moment, he nodded to himself, satisfied that he'd at least gotten Kirby to leave. He took one last look up and down the hallway, then stepped towards the pile of books that was up against one wall. Somehow the Waddle Dees must've heard that he wanted something to read, and they were bringing books down to him ever since. The demon grabbed a book from the top of the pile and headed back to his bed, sitting down to read. On further inspection, the book actually seemed sort of familiar. There was no mistaking it, the green covered book was the same Encyclopedia of Botanica that Dedede had shown him however long ago. Jin opened it and flipped through the first few pages, but was surprised to discover that Escargon had written it. The snail actually had something published? This might be interesting. On the other hand, it might put him back to sleep _._ In the end, he shrugged and started reading, too curious about the book to switch it for another one.

* * *

Somewhere upstairs, Kirby was wandering around, still looking for Fumu. He found her in her living room, looking like she was getting ready to go on a nature hike. Fumu's parents and brother were there too; Parm and Memu seemed to be cleaning up the table from lunch, and Bun was watching Channel DDD in boredom. Kirby walked up to Fumu, still a little bit upset from earlier. “Poyo poyo . . .”

Fumu looked concerned at the little guy's sadness, but then her expression turned slightly angry as she remembered the likely cause of Kirby being upset. “Kirby, why are you-- oh, you went to see Jin again, didn't you? That makes me mad . . . you're just trying to be friendly and he keeps being mean! We should keep him locked up down there forever if he's going to be that way.”

Parm shook his head at his daughter's anger. “Now, Fumu, it's not like Jin doesn't have good reason to dislike Kirby. If someone were to hurt your mother or I, wouldn't you be mad at that person? What if they destroyed your home as well? It's only natural that he's pushing Kirby away. Maybe eventually Jin could find it in his heart to forgive him, but for now it's impossible.” Parm looked down at Kirby, trying to be serious with him. “Kirby, maybe you shouldn't bother Jin for a while. It's too soon for him to even think of considering you a friend.”

Kirby looked sort of mad at that advice, and protested as best he could. “Poyo!”

Parm was a little surprised. “You want to keep trying? Even if he keeps pushing you away?”

Kirby nodded, not even considering another answer. “Poyo poyo!”

Bun looked over from where he was watching tv and grinned. “Man, Kirby's more stubborn than you sometimes, sis!”

Fumu just sighed as she looked at her brother, then back at Kirby. “I'd wonder why you thought he was worth it, but you like pretty much everyone, Kirby. So, you want to go on that nature hike now?”

That seemed to perk Kirby right up, and he bounced around happily. “Poyo!”

Bun hopped off the couch, turned the tv off and went over to Kirby and his sister. “I'm coming too! Even a nature hike's better than watching the same old repeats on Channel DDD.”

As the three of them headed down the corridors to leave, they passed Escargon. The snail was grumbling about something, but they paid it no mind and continued on their way.

Escargon was in a pretty foul mood, having to do something for Dedede that any random Waddle Dee could've done. “Why do I have to get His Majesty's after-lunch wine? True, Waddle Doo couldn't pick a proper vintage if his life depended on it, but some of the Dees aren't quite as hopeless. Oh well, maybe if I impress him enough with my choice, he'll let me have some too.” He kept walking, making his way downstairs and eventually to the dungeon and wine cellar area. Escargon had to pass Jin's cell on the way, but didn't spare him a glance and kept right on going.

Jin looked up from his reading as Escargon went past, and a bit of an evil smirk appeared on his face. If the snail noticed he was still reading the Encyclopedia of Botanica when he went past again, at the very least the next few minutes wouldn't be boring.

It took him a while, but Escargon eventually came back, carrying a bottle of wine. He probably wouldn't have stopped at all if he hadn't idly glanced over at Jin. Once he did, he noticed what the former salesman was reading and stopped in his tracks. “Hey, where'd you get that? There's only two copies of the Encyclopedia of Botanica in this castle and mine's safe in my room, so then--” The snail's eyes went wide and he raised his voice in surprise. “That's the autographed copy I gave to His Majesty!”

That certainly made Jin curious, and he turned back to the front of the book. Under the picture of Escargon on the third page, there was the inscription: 'To His Majesty with love, Escargon'. He laughed a little at that and said, “Why, so it is. I'm wondering why you gave His Majesty something like this; he's incapable of appreciating it. I'm sure he only looked at the pictures, and then just left it lying around for the Waddle Dees to find. And there aren't any words for this inscription . . . how can you love someone like that?”

Escargon stuttered in trying to explain. “I, well, that is--” All at once he seemed to remember who he was talking to, and he started yelling. “It's the thought that counts, dammit! And how I feel about His Majesty is none of your business! Now, give that back before I decide you'd make a good guinea pig for one of my experiments . . . I wonder how a demon beast would react to some of the more interesting potions I have cooked up?”

Jin glared at the snail for that last question. “First of all, the correct term in regards to myself is 'demon'. I'm most certainly not a mindless animal. Secondly, I don't want to give this back, I'm not finished with it yet. Besides, wouldn't you like to hear what I think of your writing? I may not be very familiar with the subject material, but I can still comment on the writing itself.”

Escargon looked a little skeptical. “I'm not sure I want to hear anything you have to say. Then again, you won't be able to cause any trouble by lying or leaving something out this time, unlike a while back with that metal shell you sent over.”

Jin smiled at the memory of that very strange day and the plan that went with it. “You're still holding a grudge about that? I provided a service, but it's not my fault you decided to try on that shell. Getting back to the subject, though, I wouldn't lie about a book. That just doesn't feel right to me for some reason, I'm not really sure why.”

If anything, Escargon's expression turned more skeptical, but then he just kind of shrugged. “Huh, so there's something even you'll be honest about? I guess there are miracles in this world after all. All right, since you seem so eager about it, go ahead; tell me what you think of my masterpiece.”

Jin nodded in reply, grinning. If Escargon's reaction was anything like the one he had earlier, at the very least the demon would have something to laugh about for a while. “Well, I'll try. The style seems like it would be more at home in a novel than in a scientific reference, but at least it's different.” He opened the book and flipped to a random article, one that was lacking an image of the plant it described. “You go a little overboard with the descriptions, though in these entries that don't have pictures I guess it's required.” Finally he turned towards the back of the book, where there was an article about Whispy Woods. “The one thing I really don't like is how often you seemed to make things up about rare or legendary plants like Whispy Woods here. If he was really a demon beast I think I'd know that, or at least remember some record of it from Holy Nightmare's database.”

Escargon got downright huffy. “He might not be a demon beast but he certainly acts like one at times! Always keeping His Majesty's country club from opening, that's just rude . . . he even almost killed us once, do you know that? And anyway, I probably fixed everything in the second edition, so none of that even matters!”

Jin started laughing at that. “You must not love His Majesty that much, then. Not if you're willing to give him outdated information. Well, I doubt he could read all those big words anyway, so there's not much difference.”

Before Escargon could even attempt to let loose his outrage, he and Jin heard Dedede bellow from the throne room. “Escargon!! Where the hell are you? I'm thirsty and you aren't here with my wine yet!”

Escargon jumped in surprise and a little fear, though he managed not to drop the bottle of wine he still held. He aimed a glare at Jin before yelling at him one last time. “If I didn't have to leave, I'd sic the Dees on you right now and have them haul you to my lab! I wouldn't kill you, but there are many things worse than death, you know . . .” The snail slithered away, without giving Jin one backward glance.

Still snickering faintly, Jin watched Escargon go and almost started laughing again. Love was such a foolish thing _. . ._ Old memories ran through his mind, of a time when he didn't feel like that, and he pushed them aside. That was a long time ago, and it wasn't even the same thing! At least that wasn't unrequited . . . if it was, he wasn't sure he would be alive right now. Finally sighing at his memories, Jin stood up from his bed, taking the Encyclopedia of Botanica with him and moving to place it on the 'read' pile. He retrieved a new book and sat back down to read, his thoughts occasionally drifting back to old times as he turned the pages.

* * *

A few more days had gone by, and Fumu was making her way down to the dungeon. She brought her old abacus with her. She didn't use it anymore, so she wanted to give it to Jin as a peace offering, in hopes that he might decide to talk to her. The answer he gave her at that meeting still bothered her, so she wanted to see if he had anything else to say about it. When Fumu arrived at Jin's cell, at first glance Jin appeared to be asleep, lying on his bed and facing away from the door. After a few seconds of standing there, though, she heard him humming softly to himself. She didn't know if he was doing it to try and put himself to sleep, or just trying to fight the endless silence of the dungeon, but he sounded sort of lonely. Pity tugged at her and she tried to fight it off. Why did she feel sorry for him? She shouldn't feel sorry for him, he was evil, and he sent all those demon beasts after Kirby! Being in the dungeon all by himself had to be terrible, though _._ Still conflicted but managing to hide it, Fumu tried to get Jin's attention. “Um, Jin, can I talk to you for a minute? I have something for you, too.”

Jin didn't move other than to try and wave her off. “And why would I want anything from you? Go find Kirby or someone else if you want to give out presents, I'm not interested.”

Fumu frowned at his stubbornness, but she knew there had to be some way to get through to him. Getting an idea, she smiled. “Are you sure? I think you'll like this . . .” She trailed off and tilted the abacus to reset it, letting the sound of the beads clicking against each other echo through the dungeon.

At that very familiar sound, Jin sat up in bed, not quite believing his ears. An odd sense of longing swept over him, and it only intensified when he actually turned around and saw the abacus Fumu held. How long was it since the last time he ran his fingers across the beads of the digital abacus he'd designed and built himself? Weeks? A whole month? It'd been far too long, and seeing another abacus in front of him but just out of reach was starting to drive him crazy. Pride was about the only thing that kept Jin from begging her to give it to him as he stepped closer to the cell door. “Where did you find that? And why would you give away something so useful?”

Fumu started to explain. “Well, it's mine, but I don't use it anymore. Not that I don't know how to use an abacus, it's just more trouble than a normal calculator. I think you'll get more use out of it than I will, since you actually seem to like using one of these. At least it would be something familiar for you to have while you're here.” She moved forward and held the abacus out between the bars, so that Jin could take it. “There you go, it's yours now.”

Jin took the abacus, making sure to keep his emotions under control so he wouldn't rip it from Fumu's hands. “Thank you very much.” After getting the feel of the beads for a moment, Jin ran the abacus through it's paces, calculating out a ridiculously huge number. A contented smile slowly made its way onto his face as he worked, the mental exercise letting him forget his predicament for a while.

Fumu smiled to herself, glad that her gift made Jin feel a little better almost immediately. As he kept going, though, she started to wonder just what he was adding up. “Do I even want to know what that number is?”

The flurry of clicking beads slowed down and eventually stopped, Jin grinning somewhat wickedly at his handiwork. “His Majesty certainly wouldn't want to; it's his total debt to Holy Nightmare.” He turned the abacus around to show Fumu, and as she read the placement of the beads she winced.

Fumu reacted in shock. “A trillion deden? I knew Dedede was irresponsible, but that's just outrageous! He wouldn't have been able to pay that even if he taxed the village into oblivion.”

Jin nodded in reply, still smiling. He sounded proud of what he had to say next. “Yes, I know. That was usually the point; we would take all of a client's money, and then attack to take anything else of value. I don't recall ever letting someone's debt reach those heights before we attacked, though. Nightmare did think Kirby was slightly amusing, so that might be one reason why we held off for so long.”

Fumu couldn't hear any remorse or regret in Jin's words, and that just made her mad. She still had questions for him, though, so Fumu managed to keep her anger to herself. “Speaking of Nightmare, do you remember the other day, when I asked you why you served him? You didn't really go into much detail then. So, I was wondering, do you have anything else to say about it? Just one reason why you thought you couldn't try something else would be helpful.”

Jin's smile faded at the question. She just couldn't let him keep his mind off things, could she? He'd rather not talk about it, but she was nice enough to give him that . . . it wasn't the most subtle bribe ever, but she still had room to learn _._ He turned the abacus back around and idly flicked at one of the beads, his voice gaining a slight edge at first. “Still trying to figure me out, are you? Well, I thought I answered your question well enough at that meeting, but I guess I was wrong. Why did I serve Nightmare, and why didn't I leave? You have to remember, Nightmare created me. Asking me to turn against him is just like asking you to disown your father. I saw what happened to the fools who rebelled, too. They could consider themselves lucky if Nightmare only decided to kill them. A few were even exiled. Yes, they got what they wanted; but they were all alone out there, with no one to help them if they were attacked by Star Warriors or angry natives. So, are those good enough reasons for you?”

Instead of clearing things up, Jin's answer only left Fumu more confused. The demon having loyalty to anyone was a bit of a shock, especially with the comparison he used. She didn't expect him to have the same sort of fears that most everyone else had, either. Fumu was thoughtful when she spoke. “Well, they help, anyway. I guess you're not all that different from us if you think about it.” Something about what he'd said was bugging her, though. In a flash it came to her, it was the way he tensed slightly when he mentioned the exiled rebels being alone. It bothered her enough that she finally just asked about it. “Um, you're in a similar situation to those exiles you said about . . . are you sure you're okay with being down here all by yourself?”

Jin replied a little too quickly, but he certainly couldn't let Fumu keep up that line of thought. He forced his smile to reappear and acted as calm and collected as he could. “This is entirely different from anything they went through! I'm just fine, don't worry about it. It's safe here, and it's not as if this is the middle of nowhere and I'm completely alone, so it's not that bad.”

Fumu looked at him a little skeptically, not really taking Jin's word for it, but not wanting to argue with him either. She started to turn to leave. “Well, if you say so. I guess I'll just be going, then . . . you'd probably rather be reading, anyway.” She turned and left the way she came, trying not to feel guilty for leaving him. He said he was fine, so he's fine! Though if he wasn't being honest _. . ._ Fumu tried not to think about it too much as she headed upstairs, still feeling conflicted.

Jin sighed in relief as he watched Fumu leave, glad that he managed to keep her from finding any sort of weakness. Part of him wished she would've stuck around a little longer, though pride and hatred wouldn't let him fully admit it. He hadn't thought loneliness would be much of a problem, but that was before he was stuck down there for two weeks straight. True, like he'd said to Fumu he wasn't ever completely alone, but Waddle Dees weren't much for conversation. He wished someone else would come down there more often . . . he missed talking to people. 

Why was it bothering him so much, though? He really couldn't figure out what the problem was. It was just a vague feeling of uneasiness that he couldn't place to a memory, and trying to focus on it only made it all the more fleeting. Dismissing the feeling as something best not explored, Jin headed back towards his bed, still carrying the abacus. He sat down and started practicing his calculations. Fumu might not have noticed, but the demon's normally blazing fast speed when it came to solving equations was slightly off. Practice was the only good way to keep his speed up, so that's what he did. Anyone who ventured into the dungeon area would hear the clicking of abacus beads well into the night, as Jin tried to make up for lost time.

* * *

A week had passed since Fumu's visit, and Jin was lying on his bed, trying to ignore how loudly his stomach was growling. Waddle Doo was just there to deliver his daily meal, but Jin couldn't rightly call that food, so he'd kicked the tray out of his cell. It was still sitting overturned out in the corridor, though Waddle Dees were moving to clean up the mess. He'd lost count of the number of times he refused to eat the food he was brought. He knew it wasn't good for his health and his suit was already starting to fit a little loosely, but getting sick from something he ate was just as bad in his mind. The demon certainly didn't expect anyone else to show up, so he was a little surprised when Sword and Blade came walking into view. The two swordsmen stopped just in front of the cell door, looking in at their prisoner.

Sword spoke up first, sounding annoyed. “Hey you, Waddle Doo says you're not eating.”

Jin didn't move except to glance over at Sword and Blade. Sitting up or standing would take energy that he really couldn't afford to lose. His voice was a little weak when he spoke, though he seemed to ignore it. “I don't know why Waddle Doo bothered you about this, but there's really no problem. I'm just not hungry today, that's all.” His stomach growled loudly enough to be heard out in the hallway, and he sounded irritable when he said something else. “All right, so maybe I am hungry, but I wouldn't touch whatever it was they gave me even if it wasn't decorating the floor right now! It's bad enough that I'm stuck in here, but not giving me anything edible is cruel and unusual punishment.”

Sword just sort of shrugged, having no sympathy for the hungry demon. He and Blade had to subsist on worse things when their homeworld was ruined. “I don't know, I think it's fitting, considering what Holy Nightmare did to our planet.”

Meanwhile, Blade went over to investigate the mess the Waddle Dees were trying to clean up. The smell hit him first, and he really didn't want to see what was under the tray. “Sword, we've eaten bugs that smelled better than this stuff. Either His Majesty is getting some of this from Kawasaki's, or he's ordering the Dees to make terrible food on purpose.”

“K-Kawasaki?” Jin failed to hold back a shudder, and he curled up a little tighter in his place on the bed. “Why doesn't His Majesty just put me out of my misery and be done with it?”

Sword seemed amused, and didn't quite keep it out of his voice as he said, “Nobody will let him, so I guess he figured torturing you like this would be almost as good. I'm sorry, but there's really not much we can do about it if it's one of His Majesty's orders.”

Jin glared at Sword, not in the mood to listen to any false sincerity. “Please, leave the lying to those of us who are experts. It doesn't suit you, and you're not very good at it either. You're not sorry, and even if you could do something, you wouldn't bother! I expect that little girl and her family to pretend not to hate me, but seeing it from a servant of Meta Knight is just pathetic.”

Sword drew his weapon, the bronze-toned blade ringing as he pulled it from it's scabbard. He managed to stop short of slicing the cell door to bits, though. Even with his anger, a direct order from Meta Knight not to harm the prisoner was more than enough to keep him from attacking Jin. That didn't mean he couldn't express his rage in other ways. “Damn right I'm not sorry! I'm glad they're not feeding you properly, now you know how the people on my home planet felt after Nightmare destroyed everything. Starvation's not fun, is it? You deserve that and more, and if I didn't have orders--” Sword cut his rant short at the sound of approaching footsteps, not wanting anyone other than Blade to see him lose his cool like that. He put his sword away too, so whoever it was wandering that way wouldn't get the wrong idea about why the two knights were standing there.

There was a “Poyo!” from somewhere further down the hallway, and Kirby came trotting into view. The little puffball was carrying an apple for some reason, but as he came closer, it quickly became apparent just why he was doing that. Kirby walked right up to the wall of bars that separated Jin's cell from the rest of the hall, and held out the apple as if he wanted Jin to take it. “Poyo? Poyo poyo!”

Blade watched Kirby's antics for a minute, but finally spoke up when Jin refused to acknowledge the young Star Warrior. “Kirby doesn't give food to just anyone, you know. He only does that if they're a friend, or if he'd like them to be his friend. I don't know if it's because he's never seen you do anything bad, or if he sees past all your acting to something that you don't even realize is there. Kirby's a good friend to have, though, and you'd be a fool to refuse him.” At this, Blade reached over and plucked the apple Kirby was holding out of his grip, laughing faintly when the puff started to hop up and try to get it back. “Don't worry, I'm not going to eat it, I'm just looking!” Further inspection confirmed the knight's suspicions about just where the apple came from. “This is from Whispy Woods; it'll solve your problems for today, at least.” Blade swung his arm back and pitched the apple into the cell, making it land neatly beside Jin on the bed.

Jin eyed the apple with suspicion. “Now see here, I have no intentions of accepting anything from that pink ball! Besides, how do I know this won't kill me the second I feel crazy enough to take a bite?”

Blade had been relatively calm considering his partner's earlier reaction, but that just changed. It was one thing to refuse bad food, but now Jin was being stubborn. “No, you're going to eat that and be happy about it, or things won't be pretty when we come back around on patrol later. Kirby had to travel a long way to get that apple, so you'd better be grateful.” The green-armored knight turned to look at Sword and Kirby. “All right, guys, we've got training in about five minutes; we don't want to keep Sir Meta Knight waiting!”

Without another word, Sword, Blade, and Kirby headed upstairs. They weren't more than halfway up the stairs when Sword asked, “Why were you being so nice to that creep?”

Blade shrugged and kept walking. “I wasn't being nice for him, I was being nice for Kirby.” He looked a little further up the staircase at the pink puff, who was happily bouncing along. “He learns the best when he's happy, and if trying to befriend Jin makes him happy, then so be it. Yes, that demon will try to take advantage of it eventually, but Kirby won't do anything really bad.” The knight returned his gaze to just in front of him, his voice darkening slightly. “Besides, no one deserves to starve, not even if they're an enemy.”

Sword nodded in understanding while keeping in step with Blade. “All right, now I get it.” Something struck him as amusing as he thought of that whole conversation again and he snickered. “You think he'll eat the apple?”

Blade raised his voice for a second, though he lowered it again when Kirby turned to look back at him. “He'd better! I wasn't kidding when I threatened him. He's going to have to learn to accept our help sooner or later. We might be his enemies, but we're also the only ones he can turn to.” Sword didn't seem to have anything to say to that, so the trio kept going up the stairs, leaving the dungeon behind.

Back in the cell, Jin stared at the apple, which was still sitting in the same spot it landed. He rolled over and faced the wall, trying to ignore Kirby's little gift even with his hunger still gnawing at him. After a few minutes, his willpower gave out and he faced forward again, picking up the apple and taking a bite. Another reason why Jin hadn't wanted it was that he'd tried apples before and thought the paper he printed his reports on would've tasted better, but this one was juicy and flavorful. He could almost see why Kirby ate so many of them. He frowned a little at the thought of the puffball, but he didn't stop eating. No, he wasn't doing this for Kirby. He was just too hungry, that was all. That and those knights would probably give him a thrashing if it looked like he was being 'mean' to their little student. He felt terrible enough as it was, he didn't need to get hurt on top of it. It didn't take him long to finish off the apple, and much to his surprise, he actually felt full. He wondered if it was due to the apple being from Whispy, or if it was something he should be worried about. After a moment he gave up on it, deciding instead to get up and wander over to his stack of books. As he looked through the pile, the demon felt a sudden chill sweep over him, but thought nothing of it as it passed just as quickly.

 


	5. A Second Chance?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second part of the original chapter 3. 
> 
> Living on a space station all your life doesn't do much for your immune system, as Jin discovers . . . though at least this ends up being his ticket out of the dungeon, and opens many other opportunities...

Roughly three days had passed since Sword and Blade's visit, and the state of things in the dungeon took a turn for the worse. Waddle Doo had probably been down there the most, so he was the one who noticed something strange going on. Jin seemed more restless than ever. He couldn't focus on any of his books and just paced back and forth, occasionally stopping for a moment to wrap his arms around himself and shiver. Jin's pacing was starting to slow, however, and Waddle Doo even thought he heard the demon whining faintly to himself in misery.

Not wanting to be blamed if something was wrong, Waddle Doo stepped closer to the cell, his huge purple eye displaying concern. "Are you all right?"

Jin startled slightly and looked over at him. He was surprised that someone was actually talking to him, but his voice was too weak to really carry much emotion. "Yes, I'm fine. Just fine . . ." After he said that, a low moan escaped him and he just collapsed onto the stone floor.

Waddle Doo ran all the way up to the cell, surprise in his voice from seeing his prisoner wilt like that. "Hey, snap out of it!" The captain of the guard drew his sword and raked it across the bars, hoping to get a response that way. Jin didn't move, not even to cover his ears at the loud noise. "Come on, wake up already! I'm gonna be in big trouble if you die down here, so get up!"

Nothing Waddle Doo tried from where he stood managed to rouse Jin at all, He sheathed his sword and got out the big key ring he carried, picking one out and using it to open the door. "You'd better not be trying to get me with the oldest trick in the book, I'll skewer you if you are . . ." The soldier approached Jin cautiously, but the former salesman still didn't move, so he thought it was safe to get closer. Waddle Doo shook the demon's shoulder gently, and there still wasn't any response. Acting on a hunch, he reached over and placed the back of his hand against Jin's forehead. Sure enough, he was feverish. Waddle Doo couldn't tell how bad it was, but if passing out was any indication, Jin probably needed help right away.

Several Waddle Dees had noticed the commotion and were coming over to take a look. Pushing his slight panic aside for the moment, Waddle Doo took command. "You two, stay here and watch him; if he moves, come get me! You other guys, go scare up a stretcher from somewhere! If I know Parm and Memu well enough, they'll probably have us move him upstairs. I have to go tell everyone about this, so I'll be back!" Without another word, Waddle Doo scrambled down the corridor and headed upstairs.

It was around dinnertime, and when Waddle Doo burst into Parm and Memu's living area, the whole family was gathered at the table getting ready to eat. He felt a little bad that he was interrupting their meal, but this couldn't wait.

Fumu noticed Waddle Doo's arrival first, and she looked a little confused. "Waddle Doo? What are you doing here?" At her words, everyone else at the table glanced over at the door and saw him standing there.

Memu looked vaguely annoyed at having dinner interrupted, but that expression gave way to concern. "Yes, Captain, what are you doing here? Is there something wrong?"

Waddle Doo managed something of a nervous salute and said, "Yes, ma'am, there's something wrong! Our prisoner just fainted a minute ago! I think he's really sick; he had a fever when I checked him earlier. We should probably do something, shouldn't we?"

They all gasped in shock, but Bun was the first to recover. His voice was skeptical. "Hey, wait a minute. Why'd you come to us, anyway? Any other time you'd go straight to Dedede with something like this!"

Waddle Doo glared at the boy, but then looked away. "I may be loyal to His Majesty, but I know how heartless he can be . . . he won't do anything about this. And as for why I want to do something; well, I've never lost a prisoner before. Yes, we've never really had any prisoners, but I don't want the first one we've ever gotten to die!"

Parm spoke up, his tone as serious as it could get. “Do you really think Jin's that sick, Captain?”

Waddle Doo nodded. “Well, I'm no doctor, but I know passing out isn't good. He's more similar to your kind though, so maybe you'll be able to make a better guess than me. Can we get going now?”

With that, the five of them left the room. The trip downstairs went quickly, and Fumu and her family found themselves greeted by nearly the same sight that Waddle Doo had seen earlier. There were a few more Waddle Dees milling about, though. One of them must've thought Jin looked cold and wrapped a blanket around him. Other than that, not much had changed from a few minutes prior, and Jin was still lying in the same position on the floor.

Parm watched Memu step towards the cell and frowned. “Be careful, dear, you don't know if he's really unconscious or not!”

Memu glanced over her shoulder at her husband with a bit of a glare. “Oh, come on; in this state he's not going to be able to move, let alone try to hurt me. Not that he could if he was awake.” She faced forward again and kept walking, only stopping when she reached Jin's side. He was shivering a lot, and moaning faintly every so often. Nodding to herself, Memu got out the digital thermometer she'd brought with her. She took Jin's temperature with the device and waited a second for the reading to appear. There was a beep, then the display hovered around 103, before finally settling on 102. “This isn't good. His fever could be worse, but it's bad enough as it is.” Memu glanced around at the cell and sighed. “Well, this is no place to take care of a sick person . . . I think it'd be best to take him upstairs to our place.”

Fumu reacted in shock. “What? You can't be serious, Mom! Are you sure we can't just take care of him down here? At least this way he can't escape or do something to Kirby!”

Memu shook her head. “Well, we could try, but look around. There's no water, it's filthy down here, and there's no fresh air. We'd have to bring everything we needed down here with us, and I don't think his chances of getting better in a place like this are very good. I don't like it either, but we really don't have much choice. Besides, we'll make sure he can't do anything to Kirby. Is that all right, Fumu?”

Fumu just shrugged in resignation. “Yes, Mom. He's not sleeping in my room, though. It was okay for Knuckle Joe, but this is different . . .”

Memu managed a small smile at that, remembering the time they took care of Knuckle Joe. “Well, of course this is different. Jin will do fine on the couch for a while; I wasn't going to suggest giving up one of our rooms.” She looked towards Waddle Doo. “Well, Captain, you've been listening . . . have your men bring him upstairs. Try not to be seen by His Majesty or Escargon, though; if they see this, they aren't going to like it.”

“Yes, ma'am!” Waddle Doo directed the Dees to place Jin on the stretcher they had ready. It took four Waddle Dees to lift the stretcher, then everyone made their way upstairs as fast as they could while looking out for the king or his assistant.

* * *

Roughly ten minutes had passed since they'd brought Jin upstairs. The demon was currently lying on the couch with a sheet wrapped around him, either still unconscious or just sleeping. Memu had dressed him in one of Parm's old nightshirts. It didn't really fit Jin that well, but it was of a lighter material than the suit he wore and at least it was clean. That alone seemed to have made him a little more comfortable, though it might not have really done anything to get his temperature down.

At the moment, Memu was getting a cold compress ready to use. After wringing all the water out of the towel, she brought it over with her, but sort of frowned as she looked at her patient. Jin was still wearing his sunglasses, which would probably at least get damp if Memu put the compress in place. “I'll get those all wet if I do this now.” After a moment, she reached to take them off. “I don't think he'll mind if I take these off of him for now; it's an emergency after all.”

Bun stepped a little closer, curiosity and apprehension in his voice. “Whoa, does he even have eyes under those shades?”

Fumu paused for a moment in her hunt for any medicine they could use and glared at her little brother. “Bun, don't be stupid! Of course he has eyes, how else would he see?” Curiosity started to get the better of her, and she came over to take a closer look too. “I wonder what they look like, though?”

Memu just sort of shrugged. “Well, I guess we're about to find out.” She removed Jin's sunglasses finally, revealing a relatively normal looking set of closed eyes beneath them. Any other detail would have to wait until he woke up. Now that the glasses were out of the way, Memu put the cold compress that she was still holding in it's proper place on Jin's forehead.

Bun only complained though. “That's kinda disappointing . . . we can't even tell what color his eyes are with him asleep like this.”

Fumu shook her head at her brother in mild exasperation. “If we've waited this long, we can wait a little longer.” She remembered the small bottle she was holding and turned to face her mother. “Oh, I found some medicine to use! It should help get his fever under control, but he'll have to wake up before we can give him anything. You think it's okay to wait that long, though?”

Memu considered what options they had for a moment before answering. "My supplies are a bit low right now. I would need to ask Yabui or Escargon for something suitable to treat him with if I wanted to give him any medicine at the moment. Frankly, I don't like Yabui, and Escargon would go straight to His Majesty after I asked, even if we did threaten him. No, it's best to wait until Jin wakes up again. It shouldn't take long, and his fever's not too severe anyway."

It didn't take more than half an hour for Jin to come around. Fumu and her family were finishing up their nearly forgotten dinner, when they heard a soft thud come from the direction of their couch. On heading over to check on him, they found Jin sitting on the floor in a daze. He'd tried to get off the couch for some reason, but tripped over either the sheet or the long nightshirt he was wearing. His sunglasses were back on; since they were just on the coffee table it would've been easy for him to find them. Jin slowly realized he was being stared at, then he backed up against the couch with a yelp. “W-where am I? What's going on? Y-you aren't going to hurt me, are you?” Confusion and a good bit of fear were in his voice, and he frantically looked around the room, trying to get his bearings and failing miserably.

Parm whispered in his wife's ear. “Dear, I think he might be a little delirious. I can't tell if he recognizes any of us right now.”

Memu whispered back. “Yes, I know. We'll just have to try our best to keep him calm until he comes out of it.” She looked down at Jin, who was growing more anxious by the second, and said, “Well, you're in our living room. You're sick; that's why we brought you up here, so we could take better care of you. Don't worry, it's safe here, and we won't hurt you.”

That only made Jin more confused. “You're trying to take care of me?” After a moment, he seemed to come to a realization and calmed down a little, though he still sounded unsure of himself. “Oh, I understand now; I'm dreaming. That's the only logical explanation . . . no one on this planet would want to help me. I'm sure I'll wake up back in that dreadful cell any minute now.” He looked towards the floor, and started tracing circles in the carpet with one finger. “I wouldn't mind it as much if I wasn't hungry all the time, or if someone would bother talking to me. Just a little attention would be nice.” The former salesman started shivering again, reminding everyone of how sick he was. Jin grabbed one corner of the sheet that was pooled around him and hugged it close to himself, trying to keep warm. “D-dreams aren't supposed to be this cold, are they?”

Memu looked a little guilty at Jin's words, but was motivated to action when he started shaking. “I'll get you some tea. Would you like that?” She headed over to the door leading to their kitchen, but stopped short of going in. “Fumu, where did you put that medicine? Get some of it ready, please. He can take it with the tea.” She disappeared through the door as Fumu went to retrieve the bottle of medicine from where she'd put it aside.

Parm stepped closer, and tried to help Jin back onto the couch. “Here, it should be a little warmer if you're not sitting on the floor.” Jin stiffened at the touch, but after a moment he relaxed again and allowed Parm to help him.

Bun was more or less standing around and watching everything, but he spoke up as his father finished helping their guest. He faced Jin with a mischievous smile, though his voice held a small amount of disbelief. “You really think you're dreaming?”

It took a few seconds for Jin to try and answer, since his head hurt too much to focus properly. He was still uncertain about everything but managed a reply anyway. “I'm not really sure. It's about the only thing that explains how strange I feel right now. Nothing feels real here, it's as if it's too nice to be real. And while I can't quite remember all of you right now, I'm fairly sure your real selves would never be this kind to me.” His voice darkened for what he had to say next. “But, if I really am dreaming, I don't want to wake up again. To be in a place like this, and then wake up again in that hole . . . that's just too cruel.”

Memu and Fumu returned just in time to hear Jin's last few words. Memu sort of winced but didn't drop the tray with a teapot and cup she was carrying. Fumu looked shocked, but kept her outburst to herself as any shouting would likely scare Jin in his current condition. Still, if things had gotten that bad for him and they didn't even notice, it didn't say much for them as compassionate jailers.

Memu put the tray she held down on the coffee table. The teapot contained an herbal blend that had some medicinal value, and to counteract any bitterness she'd thrown a lot of sugar in it. Memu poured some into the cup and offered it to Jin, saying, “You probably won't see the dungeon again if we can help it; that place isn't fit for anyone to stay in very long. Here's your tea. Be careful though, it's still pretty hot.”

Jin gladly took the offered cup, holding it in both hands to try and warm them. After a moment, he blew on the tea a little and took a sip. It didn't taste like anything he'd ever had before, and all that sugar was a little overpowering, but it wasn't bad. He drained the cup and the warmth finally hit him, chasing his shivering away for the moment. The demon leaned back on the couch with a contented sigh. “That's much better. May I have a little more, please?”

Memu refilled the teacup when Jin held it out. “Of course. We have some medicine to give you anyway, so you'll need something to wash it down with. Fumu?”

Fumu startled a little and remembered the bottle she held. “Oh, right!” Opening it, she shook two orange tablets into her hand, then gave them to Jin. “Here, these should bring your fever down a little more. They're safe; I see Papa taking them all the time to get rid of his headaches.”

Jin laughed at that last comment. “Yes, I'm sure he gets those a lot, if he has to deal with His Majesty on a daily basis! I know I did.” He downed the two pills with another sip of tea, then tried and failed to stifle a yawn. “If I'm already dreaming, then why am I so sleepy?”

Fumu was the only one who replied, everyone else was unsure of what to say to him. “Maybe you're just going into a deeper sleep?” It was a complete and utter lie, and even if it was to Jin, she hated to do it. But if she broke his illusion, he would panic, and he couldn't afford to do that right now . . . she would just think of it as a little payback for all the times he played tricks on them.

Jin seemed to accept her words, though it was more like he was too sleepy to really question her. “That works, I suppose.” Another yawn, and this time he stretched out a little before remembering to put his teacup on the coffee table. He looked towards Memu and bowed as best he could from a sitting position. “Thank you very much for the tea, and for taking a little time to talk to me . . . even if it was a dream, it was nice being taken care of for once.“ The demon managed another half-yawn before lying down on the couch, curling up under the sheet and finally drifting off.

Memu watched Jin sleep for a minute, then turned to address her family. “Bun, stay here and watch him.” She looked at Parm and Fumu. “The three of us need to have a talk outside.” With that, she headed for the balcony, her husband and daughter following. Once they were all out there, Memu closed the doors leading back into the living room.

Parm spoke first, a faint note of confusion in his voice. “I know what you're thinking, dear; that whole conversation just seemed off somehow. Jin was so open with us, and he's never done that before. I know he's sick, but would that cause such a drastic change?”

Realization dawned on Fumu, and she smiled, knowing exactly what the problem was. “It's not really change, it's just part of him coming out of hiding. I remember reading somewhere that if someone's really sick or badly injured, all the defenses they've built up won't work properly until they get better. Things that are normally hidden tend to come out. That's why Jin was actually talking to us, instead of hiding his feelings and pushing us away.”

Memu nodded in understanding, but then her expression changed to one of concern. “Speaking of hiding his feelings, did either of you notice how badly Jin was doing down there?” Fumu and Parm both shook their heads no, and Memu sighed. “That's what I thought. I didn't notice until now either. We can't put him back there, not if he's that good at covering things up. The next time he collapses, he might not be lucky enough to have Waddle Doo nearby.”

Fumu's usual glare of outrage appeared on her face. “But if we can't put him back in the dungeon, what are we supposed to do with him? He could still be dangerous, you know.”

Parm held up one hand, silencing his daughter before she could take off on a rant. “No, he's not dangerous by himself. He couldn't even put up a struggle when the Waddle Dees caught him, remember? As for what we're supposed to do with Jin . . . well, is there any truth to your theory, Fumu? That what we just saw was a part of himself he keeps hidden? If that's the case, maybe if we can get him to trust us, he'll let that side out a little more often.”

Fumu looked completely certain about her theory. “I'm right, I know I am. But how can we get Jin to trust us? The only way I can think of is-- wait, there's no way that'll work!”

Parm just smiled slightly. “We have to at least try. In my experience, sometimes all a person really needs is a second chance. I've been thinking about this ever since we questioned Jin a month ago. He served Nightmare because it was all he ever knew, that was the only way he knew how to live . . . but what if we try to show him a different way? This won't be easy, but since when has the easy way ever really been worth it?”

At those words, they heard someone clapping nearby. On looking around, they noticed Meta Knight standing on the roof. He'd been listening in on the whole conversation, but chose to wait before adding his own opinion. “Such a noble idea . . . but do you think you have the will to carry it out? Jin will fight you every step of the way; he's simply lost too much to the people of this star to feel anything but hate towards you all. And I'd imagine there are other issues, as well. Even knowing this, do you still want to try?”

Parm spoke maybe a little more boldly than usual, his heart set on this course of action more than any other. It seems her mother wasn't the only one Fumu inherited her strong will from. “Yes, of course! At this point I don't think there are any other options, not if we want our prisoner to live. No, it's well past time we were true to ourselves in dealing with Jin . . . and if he already hates us, things certainly can't get any worse!”

Meta Knight seemed to be satisfied with that response. “Well, if that's what you want, I won't get in the way. Do as you wish with him . . . this experiment should be amusing to watch, at least.” Having said that, he decided to make his exit. The knight jumped from the roof down to the edge of the balcony, and then down into the courtyard.

Parm sighed in relief as Meta Knight disappeared. “There's one problem we don't have to worry about. I had a feeling Sir Meta Knight wouldn't care, but you can never be sure with him at times. Now, how are we going to tell His Majesty and Escargon?”

Memu didn't even want to consider that. “We aren't going to tell them. They'll be just as angry whether we tell them or if they find out on their own, so why bother? At least this way it'll take them a while to start causing trouble.”

Fumu nodded, looking slightly annoyed at the thought of the king and his trouble-making ways. “Yeah, once Dedede finds out, he'll never leave Jin alone. At least it won't be like with Kirby; Jin's smart enough to find some way to defend himself or retaliate. He won't really be up to it until he gets better, though . . . hopefully Dedede will be his usual dim self and not realize there's anything going on for a few days.”

Memu laughed at that, saying, “A few days? His Majesty will be lucky if he notices anything for a week or two! Let's just hope nothing else happens in the meantime, hmm?” With that, she led the way back inside. She and her family got ready for bed, trying to keep quiet so they wouldn't accidentally wake Jin.

* * *

The next day came quickly enough, and it was midmorning when Jin woke up again. He sat up on the couch and looked around, still not recognizing the room at all. He was glad it wasn't the dungeon, but waking up in an unfamiliar place was starting to make him nervous. The demon thought about sneaking out before anyone noticed, but he barely felt strong enough to stand up. Getting over to the door was out of the question. Besides that, Bun noticed Jin was awake before he could even try to slink away.

Bun seemed a little surprised, but still managed to call for his mother. “Hey, Mom, our guest is awake!”

Jin sounded confused at that. “Guest? Don't you mean 'prisoner'?” He crossed his arms in front of himself in irritation. “If you're trying to trick me, it's not going to work.” Something else was bothering him too, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

“Wow, didn't take long for you to get back to normal, did it?” Bun was surprised about that too, but pushed it aside as he tried to explain things a little more. “I'm not trying to trick you, though; my dad always says that if someone stays with us for a while, then they're our guest. You've been here since yesterday, don't you remember?”

“Yesterday?” Jin remembered not feeling very well, and talking to Waddle Doo about something, but anything else from that day was a blur. He would've tried harder to recall the memories, if that wasn't when he noticed what he was wearing. He stared down at the pink sleeves of the nightshirt he wore and cried out in panic. “What am I doing in this thing?! I want my suit . . . give it back!” Jin reached towards Bun, probably to try and shake some answers out of him, but the boy dodged and swatted his hand away. The panicking demon recoiled at the touch, and the implications of his new clothes hit with full force. His expression turned horrified, and his voice shook a little when he spoke. “S-someone had to--” That thought was the final straw, and Jin let loose a scream that might've been heard in distant parts of the castle. He hid himself under the sheet, feeling too violated to face anyone.

Bun winced at Jin's howl, then tried in vain to calm him down. “Oh geez, what's your problem? Come on, calm down . . . it can't be that bad, can it?” The boy really didn't understand what the problem was. Then again, considering Bun rarely if ever wore a shirt, it was doubtful he could understand.

Memu was already heading for the living room at Bun's earlier shout, but when she heard Jin scream she picked up the pace. Parm and Fumu came running too, but the scene as it was just confused them. Memu looked towards her son and asked, “Bun, what happened?”

Bun just scratched his head. He still didn't really get it, but he tried to explain. “He saw what he was wearing, then he freaked. I don't get it, Mom; you've seen me and Fumu enough times--”

Memu sighed at Bun's complete lack of modesty, and tried to silence him. “Bun, maybe it'd be best if you went to play with Kirby right now. Go on, get going.” Bun dashed off, not having to be told twice. Fumu already made herself scarce once she realized what the problem was, but Parm stuck around, thinking his wife might need him if things got out of hand. Memu just shook her head. “Dear, you might as well go finish that paperwork you had to do, this won't be a problem.”

Parm didn't look like he wanted to leave. “Are you sure?” After a moment of being glared at, he headed for one of the doors leading to the other parts of their residence. “All right, I'll just be over here then. Yell if you need me.” He retreated through the door.

Now that everyone else was gone, Memu stepped closer to the couch and it's occupant. Her voice took on a soothing tone. “I had a feeling you'd react this way, considering we've only ever seen you wearing a suit or that formal kimono at New Years. You'd only stay covered up that much if you didn't want anyone to see what you look like. Don't worry, though. I'm the only one who saw anything, and frankly I'm trying to forget the whole thing ever happened.”

Jin emerged from under the sheet, though he kept it wrapped around him to hide the nightshirt. He felt a little better knowing that Memu was the only one to see anything, but did she really have to say it like that? His voice sounded indignant when he finally said something. “Well, it's certainly not my fault that I was only designed to run Holy Nightmare. I was never meant to fight, so I don't have the physique for it.” Memories from his childhood of how the other demon beasts used to make fun of him for being so skinny and weak came to mind, and he fell silent. Granted, after he was older, anyone stupid enough to do that got sent via delivery system into the heart of a star, but the memories were still depressing.

Memu sighed at his reaction, not intending Jin to take it that way. It wasn't a surprise with him back to normal, though . . . there was so much hate there that he assumed the worst of everyone. She sat down beside him, and to her surprise he didn't immediately scoot over to the far corner of the couch. “I didn't mean it like that. It's just that if I have to see someone with no clothes, I'd rather it be my husband. But really, let's not dwell on that, there's just some things that don't need to be talked about. As for things that do need discussing . . . well, how are you feeling? You're doing better than yesterday, but you probably still have that fever.”

The subject change was abrupt, but Jin just sort of went with it. “I do feel rather warm right now. Mostly I just feel exhausted, though. Why is that? I'm fairly sure I've gotten plenty of sleep lately.”

“Well, that's normal if you have Dream Land Fever like Fumu thinks you do. It starts with a high fever for about a day or so, then for the next few days afterwards it causes mild fatigue. That's what she said, at least.” Memu paused for a second, trying to remember what else Fumu said. “Oh, and we've already had it, so you don't have to worry about the rest of us getting sick too.”

Jin seemed relieved at that, though he really didn't care if anyone else would get sick or not. “At least now I know what's wrong. But, what happens after I get better? Will you put me back in the dungeon again?” Any other questions about what might happen to him had to wait, as his stomach started growling. “Oh dear, how embarrassing . . .”

Memu giggled at this and stood up. “Well then, I think I'd better get you something to eat before you decide those couch cushions look appetizing. It's still early, so how about some breakfast?”

Jin glared at her. “I think you have me confused with a certain black hole named Kirby. Breakfast does sound good, though.”

When Fumu and Parm decided it was safe to wander back into the living room a few minutes later, they were happy to discover nothing major had happened. Jin and Memu were both sitting on the couch talking, though anything Jin had to say came between bites of the toast he was eating.

Jin finished off the last of the toast, washing it down with what was left of the glass of orange juice he held. Now that he'd gotten something to eat, he felt up to doing a little more than just sitting on the couch. “Is there someplace around here where I can get a shower?”

Memu thought about it for a second. “You can use ours, but you might want to wait a while. I sent Waddle Doo down to the tailor to have a few more suits made for you. If you wait until he gets back, you'll have clean clothes to wear. I'm sure you don't want to try on anything else of Parm's, right?”

Jin shook his head, as much a reply to Memu as it was an effort to get the mental image of himself wearing Parm's usual outfit out of his mind. “No, I can wait. You know, you're being unusually nice to me. It's strange that you'd treat a prisoner this way. I almost think the next thing you're going to tell me is that you're letting me out of the dungeon permanently!” He'd said that jokingly, but when Memu didn't immediately deny it, a faint chill ran down his spine. “Y-you are? But that doesn't make any sense! Why would you--” Everything seemed to come together in an instant, and Jin gasped in shock. “Wait, I know why . . . you wouldn't be so kind, or even consider letting me out unless you wanted to make me turn over a new leaf.” Shock gave way to fear, though he managed to keep himself from shaking or trying to hide under the sheet again. “No, I don't want to! I am Nightmare's most faithful servant, I won't change that for you or anyone!”

Parm came running over at Jin's sudden panic, with Fumu following close behind. “I was hoping you'd take a little longer to figure things out, but I guess that just wasn't going to happen. Jin, we're not going to force you to do anything, we're just not like that here. What we're offering is a choice. Yes, a second chance is one of the options; you can try to change and live with us in peace. But if you don't think you're capable of it, after you're feeling better, you can go back to the dungeon and we won't bother you about it again. You don't have to decide right now; if you want, it could wait for a few more days.”

Jin took a deep breath to calm himself, but he still couldn't quite keep the surprise out of his voice. “This is my decision? You'll honor that no matter which way I choose? Well then, that's a little different. I think I'll decide now, though. Waiting too long would only be more stressful.”

With the rest of them looking on, he sat there and weighed the two options in his mind. Freedom, although under constant watch to make sure he didn't stray off the 'right' path, or back to the dungeon, where he wouldn't have to deal with any of them? As tempting as avoiding contact with them was, the thought of being alone again frightened him. Then there was the constant boredom. Reading helped, but even that got boring after a while. No, he'd lose his mind if he stayed down there any longer, he just knew it. Acting the way they wanted him to wouldn't be difficult . . . after all, he was nothing if not one of this galaxy's best actors! If anything, this would eventually grant him opportunity to call for a rescue. Finally coming to a decision, he nodded. “I accept your offer of a second chance. Thank you very much for even considering me worthy of this.”

Parm looked pleased. “Then it's settled. You can stay here with us until you're feeling a little better, and I'll have the Dees get one of the guest rooms ready for you.” At that, he looked towards Memu. “Dear, maybe you should help them pick out some fresh linens from the castle stores. You know the guest rooms aren't used much at all, so the Waddle Dees tend to ignore them.”

Memu got off the couch and started heading for the door. “Yes, that is a good idea. The Dees can be useful for cleaning and other things, but I swear, some of them must be color blind when it comes to decorating the castle. Well, let's figure out which room we're giving him first, then I can decide on what sheets and curtains would be best.” She and Parm left the room, still discussing their plans.

Fumu was the only one left in the room with Jin, and she looked suspicious. Maybe a little annoyed too, but mostly suspicious. “My parents might be ready to forgive you, but I'm not! I won't forget all those things you, Nightmare, and Dedede tried to do to Kirby and to Dream Land itself. Everyone else probably will, but I won't! So don't think you can do as you please around here, because I'll be watching.”

Jin frowned slightly. He knew the girl would probably be trouble, though he didn't worry about her as much as he did Meta Knight. It did irritate him that Fumu seemed to think he'd try something right away, though. “A girl your age shouldn't worry so much, I'm sure it's bad for your health.” Fumu kept glaring, and Jin just sighed. “Think about it a little instead of jumping to conclusions. If you did, you'd see why I won't be causing trouble. You're smart, so you should figure it out eventually.”

Fumu still glared at him. “You should still watch your step.” Not having anything else to say, she walked away and headed for her room.

Jin watched her leave. Yes, Fumu would definitely be a problem, though just how much of one was hard to say. He'd deal with that when the time came, at the moment he still felt too out of sorts to do any serious planning ahead.

* * *

A few hours later in the throne room, Dedede sighed in boredom. Now that he couldn't get any more demon beasts, life seemed pretty dull. Oh, sure, he could always go terrorize the villagers or Kirby on his own, but that just didn't seem as fun. “Escargon, I'm bored! Find me something to do.”

Escargon was nearly as bored as the king was, but he didn't let it bug him as much. “You want to help with my experiments? No, wait, what am I thinking? That's just asking for you to blow up my lab somehow. Want to go golfing? Want to go cause trouble in the village?” Nothing seemed to get much response out of Dedede other than a scowl, so Escargon took a second to think. “Oh, I know, we can go drop in on Parm and Memu, we haven't done that in a while! Their brats have been awfully quiet for the past two days; I bet you they're up to something!”

Dedede grinned evilly. “Yeah, they're always up to something. We can go put a stop to it, and if Kirby's there I can try to smash him too! Come on, Escargon, let's go; this is the best idea you've had all month!”

Escargon found himself being grabbed by the arm and dragged along as Dedede went. “You don't have to pull so hard, Your Majesty!”

It didn't take more than two minutes for Dedede and Escargon to reach Parm and Memu's chambers, and Dedede all but kicked the door in. “Don't mind us, we're just making a social call! There isn't any plotting against me going on, is there?” The king stopped abruptly as he looked around the room, not quite believing what he saw.

Jin was sitting there on the couch, wearing a fresh suit and generally looking better than he had in quite a while. He looked bored, but as he was watching Channel DDD along with Bun and Kirby, that wasn't much of a surprise. “So this is the only thing you have to watch around here? It's worse than I thought it would be. No wonder His Majesty always pirated the Nightmare Network from us.” The noise at the door startled him, and when he looked to see who it was, his voice took on a slightly nervous tone. “Y-your Majesty?”

Dedede gaped in surprise, though after a moment he managed to say something. “Hey, what's he doing out of his cell? I don't remember giving any orders to let him out!”

Escargon made his way into the room and grinned. “See, I told you they were up to something! Come to think of it, this must be why Waddle Doo was avoiding us earlier. He knew about this and didn't want to tell us!”

Dedede nodded in understanding, then he sort of growled. “Oh, a conspiracy, huh?” He brought out his hammer and glared at Parm and Memu. “Someone had better make with an explanation, otherwise my hammer's gonna be getting a workout!'”

Despite his king's rage, Parm managed to come forward, strategically placing himself between Dedede and the rest of the room. “Well, Your Majesty, it should be fairly obvious. Treating Jin as harshly as we were just wasn't working, so we've decided on a different approach. We're going to try to give him a second chance. He'll live here with us in one of the guest rooms, so we can keep an eye on him. Before you ask, Sir Meta Knight seemed to be all right with it, so you don't need to try and bring him into this.”

Dedede started snickering, which eventually built up into one of his usual cackles. “A second chance? That's hilarious! This swindler will never turn over a new leaf or whatever, he just doesn't have it in him.” Parm didn't seem to be persuaded by his words, so the king looked past him and started talking to Jin. “So, when exactly do you plan on betraying them? At your first opportunity or are you going to wait until they trust you? Once a scoundrel, always a scoundrel, after all. I should know, I am one!”

Jin aimed a glare at the king. “Well, I may be a fellow scoundrel, but I'm nothing like you, Your Majesty. At least I'm intelligent enough to know when there's no point in trying anything.”

Dedede growled in rage. “Are you calling me stupid? Well guess what, if I'm going to be forced to let you stay in my castle, I won't be putting up with your mouth!” He pushed Parm out of the way and charged forward, hammer ready to smash something.

Needless to say, Jin took off running. He tried to keep the furniture between him and Dedede, though the penguin seemed to just plow right past most of the things in his way. An unlucky table ended up smashed, and the knickknacks that were on it shattered on the floor. Even with the king not really caring what he broke, he still couldn't quite catch his prey. Unfortunately, Jin wouldn't have the energy to run for long on a good day, and still being sick really didn't help. He tired almost to the point of collapse after a few minutes of dodging Dedede, his thoughts racing for some way out. His stamina ran out before he could think of anything, though. His feet gave out beneath him, leaving him sprawled on the floor, gasping for breath.

Everyone started to move, to stop Dedede from doing anything stupid, but Kirby was the fastest. The whole situation reminded him too much of PhanPhan getting chased around and the little guy just wouldn't allow it. “Poyo!!” He hopped off the couch with an angry look in his purple eyes, and ran over between Dedede and his intended victim. The puffball didn't wait for Dedede to protest, he just started using his inhale.

“Knock it off, you crazy pink ball!” Dedede skidded to a stop when faced with Kirby inhaling and tried to run the other way. He lost his grip on his hammer, and it went flying down the vortex, straight into Kirby's mouth.

With a flash of light, the puffball actually turned into Hammer Kirby this time. Hammer in hand, Kirby dashed forward and smacked Dedede with it. The king went flying towards the door and collided with Escargon, with the remaining momentum sending them out into the hallway, and maybe even through the wall. Nobody bothered to check, least of all Kirby. As soon as he escorted the king out, Kirby dropped his transformation and went over to check on Jin. “Poyo poyo?”

Jin hadn't moved from where he'd fallen, though he'd managed to catch his breath a little. “I'm fine . . . just leave me alone.” He soon found himself on the receiving end of several angry stares. “What? I appreciate that Kirby showed His Majesty the door, but I don't want anyone's pity! Especially not a Star Warrior's.”

Bun came over and tried to lead Kirby away. “Come on, Kirby, that's about all of a thank you you're gonna get from him right now. Let's go play some more . . . if we can find Dedede out there, I bet you'll scare him really good after what you just did!”

Kirby seemed a little reluctant to go, but after a second he let Bun lead him towards the door. Bun let go of the pink puff once he got to the door and went running out in search of Dedede. Kirby looked back with a sad little “Poyo?” and then followed his friend.

Jin looked up at Parm and Memu, who were still glaring down at him in disapproval. His next words came out in a low growl. “Let's get one thing straight. I'll try to behave, but don't expect me to fall in love with that pink ball like all of you have. I can't, not after everything he's done.” Longing for things to be the way they used to threatened to close in, and he took a second to compose himself before saying anything else. “I did mean what I said to His Majesty, though. Interpret that how you will.”

Memu considered his words for a moment, but she still looked a little mad. “Well, you don't have to like Kirby, but you could try being a little nicer to him. And you were getting along all right with him earlier, why can't you just do that?”

Jin managed to sit up, though he didn't think he could stand yet. “Ignoring someone and getting along with them are two different things.” Memu got a little angrier at that response, but Jin didn't flinch or even start looking apologetic. “I knew you wouldn't like that very much, but it's the only thing I can tell you.”

Memu finally glanced at Parm and said, “I'm beginning to see why Sir Meta Knight tried to warn us yesterday . . .” She walked off to retrieve a broom and dustpan, to start cleaning up the disaster area Dedede turned the living room into. She wasn't exactly storming around, but maybe she could've been a little less forceful with her sweeping.

Parm watched Memu wander around the room, cleaning as she went, and something of a long-suffering expression made it's way onto his face. There'd be no talking to her for at least a couple of hours, so he decided to go see how the Waddle Dees were doing on what few repairs they still had to make to the castle. Before he left, he at least had the presence of mind to warn Jin. Parm stepped closer to the demon still sitting on the floor and whispered, “You might want to leave her alone for a while; I can't say what'll happen to you if you don't.”

Jin sneaked a glance at Memu, and he still managed not to wince, even as the broken vase she swept up seemed to shatter more when it hit the back of the dustpan. He did look a little nervous, though. He whispered back to Parm. “Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea of what will happen. I'd really rather not get chased around with a broom too, so I'll be keeping my distance.” Parm seemed satisfied with that reply and finally left.

Jin sat there and watched Memu work for a few minutes, but eventually got to his feet and walked rather unsteadily to the couch. He sat down heavily, still too exhausted from all the running around. The tv was still on, so he started watching again, but he was paying more attention to his thoughts than whatever was on the screen. His Majesty was a menace, and they probably wouldn't like it if he retaliated, either. He would try to avoid him for now . . . the castle was big, so that would help. Jin tried to focus on the tv but quickly grew bored, only managing to stay awake when one of Curio's historical documentaries came on ten minutes later.

* * *

Sunset had come and gone, and night fell over Dream Land. In the castle, Jin stepped out onto the balcony, the night breeze ruffling his hair a little. He stepped closer to the edge, and looking down, he watched the Waddle Dees patrol around the courtyard for a while. Getting bored of that after a minute, it occurred to him to look up for some reason, and he smiled slightly at what he saw. Pop Star's night sky was spread out before him, the stars shining brightly without the moon overshadowing them. However, as with most things on Pop Star, very few of the constellations looked familiar. The ones that did seemed smaller, and there were even a few that looked like they were reversed. The demon supposed it was only natural, as his usual vantage point was 900 lightyears away. That's when he remembered he hadn't seen the stars at all since he left the fortress. It was starting to make him homesick, but even with that hollow feeling tearing at his heart, he couldn't stop watching the sky.

Fumu emerged from her room carrying a book, and headed towards the balcony to do a little stargazing. She was surprised to find Jin already out there doing the same thing. After all, if he lived in space all his life, wouldn't the stars get boring after a while? She stepped closer and spoke, though her voice was a little skeptical. “You like looking at the stars too?”

Jin glanced back at her, then turned his gaze to the heavens again. He felt a little annoyed that Fumu decided to bother him and thought about not responding, but after a moment he did it anyway. He had pretenses to uphold, though to be honest he actually wanted to talk about it. “Oh, yes. Observing them was something of a hobby of mine. There really wasn't much to do between His Majesty's calls, so it was something that kept me from getting too bored.” After a moment, he reached up and took his sunglasses off, then rubbed his eyes. He kept facing forward so Fumu couldn't see much, though. Jin stared up at the stars without the shades for a minute, and as that didn't seem to help, he put them back on. “Is there something wrong with my eyes, or are the stars flickering for some reason?”

Fumu looked a little harder at the stars, but couldn't seem to find anything wrong. They were just your run of the mill stars, twinkling up in the sky. “They look normal to me.” That's when she remembered her trip into space, and how the stars looked different there. “Oh wait, I remember now! When I saw the stars from the Halberd, they weren't twinkling like this at all. They were just steady points of light against the black. I didn't really like it, I thought it made them seem too cold. That's the only way you've ever seen the stars, isn't it?”

“Yes, I think you may be right. I've only ever been on a planet once, and I don't remember seeing the stars then. It's a subtle difference, but it's just enough to bother me. I'd imagine the 'twinkling' is from the light going through Pop Star's atmosphere?” Jin paused for a second and sighed, looking away from the sky. “That's another thing that's different from the way it was back home . . . nothing is ever the same here.”

Fumu was about to accuse him of being overdramatic again, but something about his tone of voice made her think twice. Most of the time she really couldn't tell if what Jin showed to the world was how he truly felt, but that faint note of depression in his voice sounded real enough to her. Even if he was raised to be bad, he still had the same emotions everyone else did . . . she would have to remember that. What could she do to help him, though?

Trying to cheer him up the way she would anyone else probably wouldn't work, so she decided on a different approach. “Well, think of it as a learning experience.” As Fumu said that, she remembered just why she was out there, and flipped open the book she carried to a page she'd marked earlier. There was a drawing of Pop Star in it's orbit, and a list of dates and times below it. Checking the list again, the girl found that night's date towards the bottom and she smiled. “Besides, there's some things in space that are best viewed from a planet . . . I'll bet you've never seen anything like what's about to happen before.”

Curiosity replaced any lingering depression in his voice, and Jin turned to face Fumu again. “Something's going to happen?”

Fumu didn't give him any sort of hint. “Oh, you'll see! Just keep watching the sky.”

Jin did as she asked, too curious to ignore her. After a minute or two there still wasn't any change in the sky, and he was starting to get bored, though. “I still don't see anything different . . .” As he said that, a streak of light crossed the sky, followed by a few more. Shooting stars blazed across the heavens in droves, and Jin found himself captivated by the sight. “So that's what a meteor shower looks like from a planet's surface? It's beautiful.”

Fumu just nodded in satisfaction. “If you weren't down here with us, you wouldn't have seen that at all.”

Jin didn't stop looking at the sky, but he slumped a little. “I wonder if I'll still be here nine hundred years from now, when the light from Holy Nightmare's explosion finally reaches this planet? I know it's gone, but I didn't see it happen . . . it's been well over a month and it still doesn't feel real to me.” He tore his gaze away from the stars, focusing on a point somewhere down in the courtyard. “I don't know why I'm even telling you this, there's no way you can really understand.”

The girl was at a loss for words for a moment, though it didn't take her long to recover. The more paranoid part of Fumu's mind cried a warning, to not be nice to someone so evil, but her heart silenced it. She didn't have to trust someone to be nice to them. She couldn't just let him keep feeling this way; Meta Knight might be that cold, but she wasn't. Fumu's voice was soft when she spoke. “No, I don't understand. But I can see that you're hurting, even if you're hiding most of it. Just know that you aren't alone. If you ever need anyone to talk to, my parents and I will be here. It might be better if you talked to Mabel, but it'll probably be a while before you get to go to the village.”

Silence dominated the balcony for a minute as Jin tried to figure out what to say to that, if anything. Fumu's offer of help confused and scared him, so he wanted to keep quiet and not answer. As she looked at him expectantly, though, he knew he couldn't ignore her. After a moment, he shook his head slowly. “No, it's still too soon. Talking about it now would only make things worse.”

Fumu looked a little disappointed with that response. It wasn't entirely unexpected, so she didn't bother trying to push the issue. “Well, if you're not ready, that's all right. Just try to keep what I said in mind, okay?” She hesitated for a moment, then looked up at the shooting stars again. “So, still want to watch the rest of the meteor shower?”

Jin thought about it for a second, then turned to face the sky again himself. “Well, I certainly don't see why not. It is the first one I've ever really bothered watching, so I might as well stay out here long enough to see it all.”

The two of them stayed out on the balcony for nearly an hour. As the last few shooting stars streaked past the horizon, they finally ventured back inside. It was a little past Fumu's bedtime, and Jin was starting to get tired again anyway, so it pretty much worked out. As Jin followed Fumu back inside, he could faintly sense one of the Star Warriors nearby. As Kirby hadn't been around since dinner, he started looking around for Meta Knight. Sure enough, the old warrior was up in one of the nearby turrets, and was also turning to enter the castle. Jin's thoughts turned slightly nervous. Now what was he doing up there? Just watching the stars, or was he watching him, too? No, there was no point fooling himself, of course he was being watched! The demon's eyes narrowed behind his shades. The Star Warrior could observe all he wanted, but if he tried anything it would be so subtle no one would know about it until it's too late! Without sparing the departing Meta Knight another glance, Jin finally went inside, closing the balcony doors behind him.

* * *

About three days later, Jin was feeling much better, so Parm and Memu thought it was a good idea to move him to his new room. It was pretty close to their own quarters, though on the side furthest away from Dedede's room. That would likely be best for all involved: they could keep an eye on Jin, and Dedede would avoid causing trouble if he had to walk long distances to do it. Bun and Fumu ended up helping Jin carry a few things to his room. It was mostly clothing, though Jin was carrying a small basket Memu had filled to the brim with personal items. A comb, a bottle of shampoo, and a toothbrush could be seen poking out, though there were a few more things in there she thought he might need.

Bun carried a pile of folded up nightshirts. He would've rather been out playing, but he made the mistake of sticking around too long after lunch and his mother roped him into helping. “Wow, I hope this room has a big closet! I don't know where we're gonna put all this otherwise, sis.”

Fumu held a suit still in it's garment bag, and had two folded dress shirts tucked under one arm. She was leading the way down the corridor, but they made slow progress because of all they had to carry. “Bun, it's not that much stuff! And I went in there earlier with Mom, there's plenty of space for this and more to spare.” At the thought of her mother and clothing, an amused smile appeared on her face. “Better watch out, Jin, or she'll drag you along too the next time we go clothes shopping.”

Jin was carrying another suit, a few more dress shirts, and the previously mentioned basket of toiletries. He looked at Fumu quizzically, not really getting what was so funny. “That wouldn't be so bad. Your mother does seem to have good taste, after all.”

“That's not the bad part. The bad part is that it takes forever!” Bun remembered the last time they'd gone shopping and complained about it rather loudly. “We were dragged around from store to store for hours while everyone else was out playing . . . that just sucked!”

Fumu tried her best to ignore her brother's whining as she spoke to Jin. “Well, you probably won't have it as bad as we usually do. You're an adult and not even related to us, so she shouldn't bother you too much. Don't be surprised if she makes a few suggestions, though.” They kept walking, and as she looked up ahead, she spotted their destination. “Oh, there's the room! Now we can finally put all this stuff down.” Fumu somehow managed to open the door even with all the things she carried and she stepped inside, followed by Bun and Jin.

It was one of the many guest rooms scattered around the castle, and while it wasn't huge, it wasn't all that small either. The bed was in the very back of the room, beside a window looking out into the courtyard. There was a small table with a lamp beside it. The left wall of the room was lined with a closet, and a dresser with a mirror on top of it. The right side of the room had a bookshelf with a comfortable-looking chair beside it, and in the corner by the door there was a table slightly larger than the bedside one with two chairs around it. And like nearly every other room in the castle, there were a few small statues of Dedede sitting around. A small one was on top of the closet, and a larger one sat in the left corner near the door.

Jin stepped to the center of the room and looked around. “So this is where I'll be staying? It's nicer than I expected. It looks a little smaller than my old room, but I think that's only because nothing's built into the walls like it was back on the fortress.” Deciding to put away all the things he held, he moved to the dresser and put the basket on top of it, smiling when he saw the abacus Fumu gave him already sitting there. “I was wondering where this went . . . those Waddle Dees can certainly be useful at times.” He went over to the closet and opened it, hanging up the suit beside the ones the Waddle Dees already put in there. Fumu handed him the suit she was carrying and Jin hung that up too. The dress shirts ended up in the drawer on the bottom of the closet. On closing the door, Jin spotted the Dedede statue on the closet's top and frowned at it. “Why are these statues of His Majesty in here? All they're doing is taking up space.”

Fumu looked from one statue to the other, and then back at Jin. “Oh, those are just for decoration, even though they're really too ugly for that. It's best to just leave them alone. Dedede likes to see himself everywhere, and he gets mad if there's any statues missing.”

Jin seemed a little confused at that. “Decoration?” At the children's questioning looks, he tried to explain himself. “Oh, I know what it means, I just think all it does is make things look cluttered.”

Fumu thought back to her short visit to Nightmare's fortress, mainly right after Escargon and Dedede grabbed her. She couldn't remember seeing one thing that looked remotely decorative on her way to the main control room. There was a chandelier in the control room itself, but it only reminded her of the rest of the fortress, all cold metal and hard edges. She idly wondered how someone as charismatic as Jin could've come from such a place, but dismissed the thought as too far off the subject. “Judging from where you lived, that doesn't surprise me. I'm sure you'll get used to the idea eventually. Maybe you'll even find something you like down in the village and put it in here somewhere.”

Still wearing a faint frown, Jin didn't sound convinced. “I don't know . . . this room doesn't seem like it really needs anything else.”

Meanwhile, Bun finally got bored of hanging around. He dashed past Jin and Fumu over to the bed, and put down the stack of nightshirts he'd been holding. The boy turned around and ran out the door, only pausing for a second to call out, “I'm gonna go play with Kirby now, bye sis!”

“You could try being a little more patient, Bun!” Fumu yelled after him, even though she knew he wouldn't hear her. With her little brother gone, though, she remembered she still had something to do. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot! My mom found a few things in the pockets of your old suit, but she never got around to giving them back to you, so she told me to do it. Now where did I put those?” The blonde reached into a pocket and pulled out two thin items. One was a Holy Nightmare ID card: the company's logo was printed across the top, there was some writing underneath that in a language she'd never seen before, and a picture of Jin featured prominently on the left side. The other was a slightly dog-eared photograph of a much younger Jin, and standing behind him was what Fumu would've sworn was a Chilidog if it hadn't been so small. She stared at the picture for a moment before handing it and the ID card to Jin.

“Thank you very much for finding these!” A mix of relief and happiness could be heard in Jin's voice, and he smiled as he looked at the photo. “Especially this picture; it's irreplaceable now.”

Fumu was already curious about the photo, and that comment only made her more so. “Um, can I ask you something about that? I know that's you in front, that outfit's too similar to what you're wearing now. But what's that behind you? It looks like a Chilidog but it doesn't seem big enough.”

Jin hesitated for a second, not sure if he wanted to say anything. Some of the memories surrounding that picture still hurt, even after such a long time. In the end he just sort of sighed and answered her, thinking he'd be all right if he avoided talking about the bad parts. “That's what a Chilidog looks like when it's still a puppy. What, did you think Nightmare brought all his demon beasts into the world as adults? That was all right if all he wanted was cannon fodder, but if he needed something intelligent, he had to give them time to grow and learn.”

Fumu laughed a little at that. “So then this picture is pretty much what I thought it was, just a boy and his dog? It would almost be cute if I didn't know what you both grew up into.”

Jin considered her words for a moment before shaking his head. “No, you don't know what Soren was like, not really. Yes, he and the Chilidog we sent here look the same, but that and the weakness to water are the only things they share. Soren was a lot smarter; he wouldn't have allowed those knights and Kirby to corner him so easily. He didn't need to burn things as often to keep his power up either. At the very least, it would have made him harder to track. If we could've sent Soren, I think he might have won.”

“Soren? That's a nice name. And from how proud you sound of him, you probably loved him very much.” Fumu paused for a second when she realized Jin was talking about his pet in the past tense. Part of her didn't want to ask, and it was that part that tinged her voice with sadness. “But, something happened to him, didn't it?”

Jin grew very quiet, his eyes sliding shut behind his sunglasses. He felt the tears threatening to gather but somehow managed to hold them back. Why did she always know where it hurts the most? He opened his eyes again and fidgeted a little, not seeming to know what to do with his hands before finally clasping them in front of him. “Yes, it did. I really don't know what it was . . . there were so many conflicting reports. The war with the Galaxy Soldier Army was in full swing at the time, so I was too busy to look into them all. Now that I'm stuck here, I doubt I'll ever find out what really happened.” Admitting that out loud was more painful than he'd thought it would be, and suddenly all he wanted was to be alone. “Please, could you just--”

Fumu was already on her way out the door, looking apologetic as she backpedaled. “I think I'll go see what Bun and Kirby are up to.” She turned to leave, but before she did she stopped in the doorway. “I-I'm sorry I asked . . . I shouldn't have bothered you about it.” Fumu ran from the room.

Left alone with his thoughts yet again, Jin stared at the spot Fumu was standing for a moment before taking another look at the photo he held. Soren. He hadn't thought of him in such a long time. Fond memories of growing up with the Chilidog flitted about alongside the more bitter ones of the time of his disappearance. Why did he leave, if that's what happened? Surely he would have wanted to celebrate the fall of the Galaxy Soldier Army with him! It just didn't make any sense.

A faint feeling of doubt began to plague Jin, that maybe he didn't know his pet as well as he thought he did; but he dismissed it as just part of the depression he'd been feeling ever since he arrived on Pop Star. Why was he thinking so much about the past, anyway? He needed to concentrate on the here and now if he expected to stay out of that dungeon! With that, he decided to get to work on tidying up his room a little more. He idly stuffed the Holy Nightmare ID card into one of his pockets. The photo of himself and Soren almost went with it, but he hesitated. Looking around the room, Jin went over to the dresser and it's mirror. Finding a suitable spot in the mirror's lower left corner, he tucked the picture into the thin space between the glass and its frame. Satisfied with that for the moment, Jin started putting the rest of his things away.

 


	6. Some Thievery and a Grand Tour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jin finds something's gotten swiped, and there's the first little bit of a castle tour...

Two days had passed. It was late into the night in Castle Dedede's throne room, and miraculously enough, the place was actually occupied. Yes, when Holy Nightmare was still around, Dedede would stay up late ordering demon beasts. But with that no longer an option, the grand room was usually deserted after dark. This night was different. Dedede paced back and forth in front of his throne, seeming to be deep in thought. Escargon was in his usual place just beside the throne, watching his boss pace and generally looking nervous about the whole thing.

“This really isn't a good idea, Your Majesty! Every time we've ever tried to get him back for all the crap he's pulled, it always ended up backfiring in our faces! How do you know it's going to be any different now, even if he is stuck down here?” The 'him' in question was obvious. Even as much as Escargon hated the former Holy Nightmare employee, he still had a healthy respect for Jin's vengeful side.

Dedede stopped in place and turned to growl at his lackey. “Oh, come on, Escargon! He won't get us back, not if he wants to stay on everyone's good sides. They'll be watching him like hawks and he knows it, so he won't cause any trouble. Doesn't mean we can't, though! All I need to do is think of the perfect prank to pull and we'll be all set!” The king resumed his pacing, though he seemed to be waiting for something. “Anytime you get an idea, feel free to speak up about it . . .”

Escargon thought about just leaving, though he couldn't bring himself to do it. He shook his head when the king wasn't looking, disappointed in himself more than anything. The things he did for love... The snail focused his thoughts on what sort of trouble they could cause, and finally spoke up when he had something. “All right, I'll help, but don't blame me if we get hurt in the end! Maybe we can get him to spring one of the traps, hopefully one that leads to the moat? Maybe we could put pink hair dye in his shampoo? Or how about this, we could steal something important to him? I don't know what, though . . . he doesn't really have anything worth swiping.”

Dedede grinned at most of the ideas, though the last one amused him the most. “All of those are pretty good, but there's something about stealing from him that just feels right. It's only fair since he did the same to us! But what should we take?” The penguin thought about it for a few minutes, his eyes finally brightening as they did when he got a rare idea of his own. “Wait, I got it! He's always wearing those damn sunglasses, I say we steal those! If he thinks he can keep hiding his eyes from us he's got another thing coming . . . besides, I always wondered what I'd look like wearing those shades.”

“I think they might be too small for you, Your Majesty. But I can't think of anything better to steal, so we might as well go with that!” Escargon looked around the throne room for a Waddle Dee they could rope into the job, but other than himself and the king, the place was deserted. Frustrated, he yelled for the captain of the guard. “Waddle Doo, get in here! His Majesty has a mission for you.”

Waddle Doo came running into the throne room, completely unaware of what he was about to be dragged into. He snapped off a quick salute and stood at attention, waiting for orders. “Reporting for duty, Your Majesty! Um, what do you want me to do?”

Dedede motioned for the one-eyed warrior to come closer. “Get over here and we'll tell you . . . heheh, this is gonna be great.” After listening to a few whispered orders, Waddle Doo ran back out into the castle proper again, off to do his master's dirty work.

* * *

Dawn came and went, and it was roughly 9 o'clock when Jin finally began to stir. He was buried underneath the covers and took his sweet time deciding if he wanted to be awake or not. It was nice and warm under there, and he did still feel slightly sleepy. The only thing that kept him from rolling back over was that Fumu would likely show up in the next hour and wake him up anyway. Having decided to get up, the demon remained under the covers, but he poked one hand out and reached over to his bedside table, where his sunglasses should have been sitting. A few seconds of feeling around and not finding the glasses made Jin throw off the covers, and sit up and look around. At first he thought maybe he knocked them on the floor and looked there, but the black-rimmed shades were nowhere to be found.

“I know I put those there last night, so what happened to them?” It took Jin all of half a second to conclude that Dedede was responsible, so he got out of bed and started gathering up some clothes to get dressed. He knew His Majesty was a thief, but the penguin certainly had some nerve if he was bold enough to steal from him. His thoughts trailed off, since as he stormed around, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. Jin stopped in his tracks and turned to check. He looked like nearly anyone else who'd just rolled out of bed; his hair was a disaster, and the pale orange nightshirt he wore was slightly rumpled. That didn't bother him, though. What did was being able to meet his own gaze in the reflection for once. His eyes didn't betray his emotions as much as when he was younger, but he turned away before he could see the anxiety he knew was there. He couldn't face the king like this . . . no, he couldn't let _anyone_ see him like this! What in the name of Nightmare was he supposed to do now?

Feeling decidedly helpless and hating every second of it, Jin got on with getting dressed. It might have been fairly pointless, but it was better than doing nothing.

* * *

An hour passed, and Fumu wondered why she hadn't seen Jin yet as she wandered the halls. He'd gotten into a habit of conveniently showing up at her place just in time for various meals, yet he mysteriously hadn't appeared for breakfast. She figured she might as well go check on him, since nobody else was going to do it. On arriving at Jin's room, she noticed the door was opened a crack, and the Waddle Dee standing guard nearby was peering in, but wasn't quite brave enough to go inside. The blonde didn't have this problem and strode past the guard, fully expecting to have to drag Jin out of bed.

Something felt wrong from the second she stepped across the threshold. The curtains were closed, and none of the lights were on. Yet there was Jin sitting in the chair by the bookcase with his nose in a book, reading in the dark. He started to look up at Fumu, but then caught himself and focused on his book again.

Fumu stepped towards the window. “You're going to hurt your eyes doing that. I'll just open this--” She reached for the curtain to open it, but pulled her hand back at Jin's unexpected reaction.

“Please, don't!” Jin realized he'd overreacted about a second afterward. He took a deep breath to try and calm himself, and continued speaking as if nothing happened. “I mean, you don't have to do that. I'm fine, really. I can see much better in low light, anyway.”

Fumu sounded skeptical at this. “You know, you can say you're fine all you want, but that doesn't make it true.” She moved closer to Jin and looked him over, trying to find anything outwardly wrong with him. He turned away at her investigation, and that's when the girl noticed what was missing. “Hey, wait a minute. Where are your sunglasses?”

“If His Majesty has a trophy case of some sort, I imagine he's locked them in there by now. Either that or he's trying to wear them.”

Fumu clenched her fists at her sides in anger. “That Dedede is such a jerk! Well, come on, if we hurry we can take your sunglasses back before he knows what hit him!” She turned to dash out the door, but stopped when she realized Jin wasn't following her. “Why are you still sitting there? You're not going to let him get away with this, are you?”

“I certainly don't want to let His Majesty win, but I cannot go out there like this . . .” Jin still refused to face Fumu, though there wasn't any shame in his voice. He sounded more resigned than anything else.

“Why not? It doesn't seem like you need those glasses to see.” Curious, Fumu tried to move between Jin and the space he was staring off into to get a glimpse of his eyes. He closed them tightly before she could see anything, but he stopped short of standing up and trying to get away from her. The demon just sat there, oddly still and quiet, and Fumu thought she saw something strange. Wait, was he shaking? She looked again and couldn't see it, wondering if it was just her imagination. Even if it was a figment, it still motivated her to move. “All right, fine! Stay here, I'll be right back!”

Fumu turned and ran out the door, hoping to find Kirby or Bun somewhere in the castle before she confronted Dedede.

* * *

Meanwhile, up in the throne room, Dedede was quite happily gloating over his recent victory. He didn't have a trophy case as Jin thought, so he couldn't show off his prize that way. Instead, the king did the next best thing, he was wearing the stolen sunglasses. Well, maybe 'wearing' wasn't the right word. Dedede quickly discovered the shades wouldn't fit around his fat head. Not feeling like breaking his new toy so soon, he'd placed them on top of his crown. It wasn't the proper way to wear them, but it was good enough and he was grinning like an idiot. “See, I told you this would be great! We got back at that damned salesman, and I even got a new accessory too! I don't see why you were so worried, Escargon.”

The snail, on the other hand, didn't seem so enthused about all of this, and glanced around nervously. Things may have gone smoothly so far, but Escargon just KNEW they would end up paying for this somehow. “'Were' worried? I still am worried, Your Majesty. Just because you have the prize, that doesn't mean someone won't come along and take it back.”

Dedede let out another cackle in reply, finding something absolutely hilarious about that. “That's a good one, Escargon! You know how he is about appearances; he won't be able to face us without wearing these. And as for anyone helping him, HAH! Maybe that goody-goody Fumu, but this could work out in her favor . . . if he loses enough pride, he'll be a lot easier to train. If I were her, I'd take any advantage I could get...”

Unfortunately for the penguin king, Fumu and Kirby had sneaked into the throne room from one of the side entrances just in time to hear that bit of his musing. The pink puffball had no idea of what was going on, just that his friend had decided to drag him along somewhere. As for the girl, she found herself clenching one fist. The entire trip to the throne room, she'd been questioning whether or not this would be worth the trouble, or if maybe it was better if Jin just had to deal with having one less barrier between himself and others. Dedede's words . . . well, if he thought something like that was a good idea, then in Fumu's eyes it was definitely a bad one!

Fumu chose that moment to emerge from hiding, glaring at the king, though whether she was more angry at him or herself was up to debate. “I may be a 'goody-goody', but at least I'm not a jerk and a thief! Kirby, use your inhale!”

Kirby followed Fumu out of the shadows, though he kind of questioned her command to inhale. Well, until he sighted what Dedede had decorating his crown, anyway. Hey, those shades weren't the king's! Maybe if he inhaled hard enough he could take them back? After a delay of about half a second, the baby puffball followed his friend's order, inhaling for all he was worth.

Yet again Dedede faced the swirling vortex that led into Kirby's black hole of a stomach, and it was all he could do just to hang onto something. “Augh, not again! I am not giving these back, do you hear me--” But he reached up to hang onto those sunglasses a moment too late, and like everything else not nailed down or hanging onto something for dear life, they went flying.

Fumu picked that moment to charge forward, making a daring leap and snatching the flying shades out of midair. “Okay, Kirby, that's enough! Quick, let's get out of here before those two snap out of it!”

With that, the girl and the puffball fled the throne room at high speed, before Dedede or Escargon recovered enough to have presence of mind to sic the Dees on them.

* * *

Fumu stepped through the open doorway, holding Jin's sunglasses gently so she wouldn't break them or smudge the lenses. She idly wondered where Kirby went, but figured his disappearance was for the best and kept walking into the room. Jin was sitting in the chair by the bookcase, but he must've gotten bored with reading. He held his abacus instead of the book from earlier, and the faint but rapid clicking of beads told Fumu he was practicing something complicated. She almost didn't want to interrupt him, but he spotted her soon enough and she didn't have to.

The clicking stopped, and Jin put the abacus down on the table. He didn't face Fumu, but she could still see his smile. “You brought them back! Judging from the screaming I heard, whatever you did to His Majesty had to be painful, so that's all the better. Thank you very much. Now, if you would just put those on the table there, you can get back to doing whatever it is you do around here.”

The girl recognized the brush off for what it was, but had no intentions of listening to him. Fumu was too curious about what lay hidden at that point, and her expression turned serious. “No. I'm probably being selfish for even considering this, but there's something I want first.” She held up the sunglasses and a slightly mischievous smile made it's way onto her face. “Look me in the eyes without these, just this once. I want to see what the real you is like. This is probably the only chance I'll get, so you can't really blame me for trying to take advantage.”

Shock dominated Jin's features for a second, then he turned defiant. “No, I refuse! I would rather be stuck in here for the rest of my life!” Without so much as a reply, Fumu started walking away, sunglasses still in hand. Jin almost looked scared for about half a second, though he settled on being annoyed. Hey, she couldn't do that, could she? Since when did the so-called heroes get to use the sort of tactics he was fond of? 

He started to follow her, and called out before she reached the door. “Wait!” Fumu faced him again, and he looked away. He sounded pretty angry, though there was more grudging acceptance in his voice than anything else. “All right, this is one of those 'offers I can't refuse', isn't it? I should know, I certainly made enough of them to my customers. I just wish I could figure out how a little girl managed to turn the tables on me!” He hesitated for a moment, looking unsure, but then he made up his mind and resumed talking. “I will do as you ask, but on one condition: you can't tell anyone about what you're going to see. Not your parents, not your brother, and definitely not Kirby! If you can't promise me that, you should just give those back and leave.”

Fumu nodded in agreement. “That's fair enough. I'm really good at keeping things to myself; just think of how long I kept the Warp Star's location a secret! I promise I won't tell anyone about this.”

Jin seemed a little relieved at that. “Yes, that was an impressive bit of secret keeping. I'm still not fond of this at all, but at least I won't have to worry about it being halfway across Dream Land by this afternoon.” He tried to compose himself a little more, and finally managed to look straight at Fumu without turning away.

“Wow . . .” Other than that, Fumu was pretty much speechless. Jin's eyes were relatively normal looking aside from their color, a deep crimson that reminded her of a few sunsets she'd watched. What really stood out was how bright and expressive they were, his nervousness and anger clearly shining through. “I don't get it, why would you hide your eyes when they look like that?” She stopped to think about it for a moment, and realized how naive she must sound. “No, wait, I'm being stupid. You couldn't do your job properly if Dedede or whoever else could see what you were thinking. Am I getting close?”

“Well, that's one of the reasons, though I'm perfectly capable of hiding my true intentions without my sunglasses.” In demonstration of this, Jin's expression changed to one of calm in the space of half a second, the look in his eyes barely betraying his true feelings. Fumu still looked at him expectantly and he hesitated, complaining a little when she wouldn't just drop it. “Must I tell you the other reason? I would like to keep some of my secrets to myself, you know.”

“Actually, I think I can guess with how you reacted earlier. Bright light really hurts your eyes, doesn't it? I remember reading somewhere that people with red eyes can't handle the sun very well. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about that either.” Fumu walked over to Jin and handed over his sunglasses. “There you go. Well, I guess I should leave, huh? I did want to show you around the castle today, but you're probably too mad at me now.”

After a quick inspection, Jin slipped his sunglasses on, visibly relaxing once he did. He glanced around at the four walls of his room, before taking a moment to nudge his shades up a bit higher with one finger. “Actually, if I stay in here, His Majesty will still have something of a victory. We can't have that, now can we?”

Fumu's expression brightened at that, even though his being willing to go with her was mostly out of spite to Dedede. Any motivation for Jin to get out more worked for her at the moment. “All right, that's the spirit! So, where do you want to go first? Although, you did miss breakfast, maybe the castle kitchen should be our first stop...”

The demon blinked in confusion behind his shades, but then that was the moment he realized his stomach was faintly growling. “I wouldn't have missed it if not for His Majesty . . . if the Waddle Dees are making his lunch at the moment, perhaps I'll help myself to some of it.” That comment earned Jin a rather flat look from Fumu, the girl not liking the thought of stealing even if it was from Dedede. He let out an amused chuckle at that before speaking again. “Yes, yes, thievery is bad. At the very least, some coffee would be wonderful right now...”

Taking that somewhat snarky comment as agreement, Fumu started leading him down the corridor, though she had something of her own to say. “You could at least cook something for yourself instead of stealing, you know...”

* * *

It didn't take long for the girl and the demon to arrive at Castle Dedede's kitchen, and as Jin predicted earlier, the place was bustling with activity as the Waddle Dees scrambled to make the king's lunch. The two of them stood there and observed for a minute. Fumu thought there was no way he could get in there and swipe anything without tripping over half the Dees, but Jin simply watched the patterns the little servants formed, trying to get a good feel for their rhythm before making any moves.

“Maybe we should come back a little later, when it's not quite as hectic in there?” Well, that was what Fumu started to ask, but apparently she underestimated just how hungry Jin was as he zoomed right into the chaos. “Hey, wait a minute--”

She was sure the Dees would run him over, or there would be a massive pileup of them and food would fly everywhere, but what Fumu was actually witness to was fairly impressive. Somehow, it seemed the former salesman had found the gaps in the Waddle Dees' various formations as they ran around the kitchen. He almost expertly inserted himself into those gaps, pausing at one appropriate moment, sidestepping around a line of Dees at another while grabbing himself a few things to munch on. He even got that coffee he mentioned wanting earlier. The only point where it looked like there might be trouble was when he headed back towards Fumu, and one of the Dees was a bit too slow getting out of the way. Jin ended up getting knocked off balance and hopped forward about three steps on one foot, but managed to compensate as he cleared the entrance.

The demon was certainly out of breath when he stopped there in front of his guide, but he seemed pleased with himself. “There, His Majesty shouldn't miss this small amount...”

Fumu blinked twice in amazement, hardly able to believe he pulled that off. “How did you do that? I would expect something like that of Sir Meta Knight, or Sword and Blade.”

Jin had already started eating those swiped goodies, starting with what looked like a lemon bar. Leave it to a demon to start with dessert first. He indicated she should give him a moment before taking a sip of coffee and washing down the last bite he took; talking with his mouth full would've just been rude. “Well, the Waddle Dees tend to move in patterns, like similar herd creatures. One only needs to observe them for a while to notice the gaps in those patterns.” At the mention of Meta Knight and his servants, Jin shook his head, laughing faintly. “That wasn't some amazing feat of agility, I just have good timing . . . thankfully the Waddle Dees don't move very quickly, either. Those knights could likely keep that up for hours, though. I can stay focused on a task for that long, but only if it doesn't require quite so much physical activity.”

“I knew you wore yourself out doing that. Are you still going to be good wandering around the castle with me after this?” Fumu kind of squinted at him for a moment, hoping that he wasn't trying to get out of their little walk already.

“Didn't I say I had no intention of letting His Majesty win? I will be fine shortly, just give me a moment to finish this.” With that said, the demon focused on his meal. The lemon bar vanished first, followed by the small sandwich he managed to grab as well. The coffee was the last thing to go, and he finished it off when he was done with his food.

Fumu stood there watching, though she was mostly focusing on the stream of Waddle Dees likely heading up to the throne room. There were still a few Dees in the kitchen cooking the last bits of Dedede's lunch, and that got her to wondering. “You know, you never did say anything when I suggested making something for yourself . . . can you cook at all?”

By that point, Jin was handing off his empty mug to a Waddle Dee headed back into the kitchen with other dishes from the throne room. The question took him off-guard for about half a second, but then he flashed his usual smile as he replied. “Of course!” Fumu raised an eyebrow at him when she noted that pause was a bit longer than it should have been, and he spoke again. “Well, I've never really had to before, but how difficult could it be?”

That question earned him an eyeroll from the girl, and she replied with, “You're asking that, when I remember hearing Dedede and Escargon bragging about forcing you to try some of Kawasaki's food?”

“I've been trying to forget that ever happened, thank you very much.” Jin took a moment to shudder at the memory; that was easily one of the worst things Dedede ever did to him. Just thinking about it made him stick out his tongue in disgust for a second. “Ugh, that so-called chef could likely burn water somehow. I certainly expect to be better than _that_ , if I ever try my hand at cooking. Well, I should be rested enough to move on; shall we get going now?”

“Kawasaki tries his best, but he can't really handle anything complicated.” Fumu just shrugged, not knowing what else to say about the hapless chef. He could almost be as much of a schemer at times as the demon currently standing in front of her, too. “If you're ready to go, we should figure out where we're going next . . . we could try the library, or Dedede and Escargon's lab, though the former would be a bit less risky.”

The former salesman thought about it for another moment, before ultimately deciding on Fumu's first choice. “I think I would prefer the library for the moment. After all this time observing them, I've more or less learned His Majesty's schedule . . . if he hadn't called me by this time in the afternoon, he was usually bothering His Excellency in the lab.”

“... You know, you're about the only person I've ever heard using Escargon's title. Sir Meta Knight and my parents are respectful, but they never really call him 'His Excellency'.” Fumu started leading the way again as she spoke, off in the direction of the library. “Why _are_ you so polite, anyway? It's not something I'd expect of you, given everything else...”

Jin moved to follow her, looking a bit shocked at the question for a second, though that faded into a faint smirk. “Well, it certainly confuses the enemy...” He let that sink in just long enough for her to start feeling a bit outraged about it, but spoke again before she could say anything. “How can I explain this? Ah, I know... I am the public face of Holy Nightmare, and the first person anyone contacting the company deals with. If I were to make a bad first impression on a given client, do you honestly expect me to be able to keep their business? Of course, they'll expect the same level of courtesy as they continue to buy things from me. Staying polite with them usually encouraged them to buy more, as well. For His Majesty, that meant always using his title.”

“Oh, I get it now.” Fumu kept leading the way, but she had a sudden thought and paused for a second. “But wait, Escargon and Dedede aren't anywhere nearby, and you're still using their titles...”

Well, this was kind of awkward, wasn't it? Jin couldn't help but reach up and rub the back of his neck with one hand, looking a bit uncertain. “Hmm . . . well, I have held my job for most of my life. After all of that time, I suppose this is just the way I am now. It's not something I can switch on or off at will, though I can tone it down slightly.”

Fumu wasn't quite sure what to think of that, and eventually just sort of shrugged to herself. “I guess that's better than someone like Dedede or Tokkori, they're rude all the time. At least you have a chance of making a good impression.” With that said, she started walking once more. “All right, the library's just a little bit further down this hall...” Again she started leading the way, and while Jin wasn't entirely lost at this point, he felt it best to keep following her.

 


	7. Finishing the Grand Tour, and a Strange Occurrence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jin sees more of the castle with Fumu leading the way, though that doesn't last. And what's with this statue that looks like a female Dedede?

It didn't take more than a minute or two for Fumu and Jin to arrive at Castle Dedede's library, the demon glancing around in amazement as he stood there in the doorway. “My, my; it's still quite surprising that His Majesty would have a library like this, considering he can only 'read' picture books.” He ventured further inside, moving to investigate the contents of the shelves.

Fumu followed him, glancing up and down some of the bookcases herself. “It's not so much Dedede's library as it is Escargon's . . . my parents added a few things here and there too.”

That fact was quite plainly seen in the variety of books to be found on the shelves. There were the science and engineering subjects that Escargon favored, the books about politics and history certainly had to be Parm's additions, and the ones about fashion and cooking were Memu's. There was also a scattering of books about medicine and health-related subjects; Jin was unsure of where those might be from. Of course there were even more subjects, but these were the ones that stood out the most.

As the demon perused the shelves, something started bothering him, though whatever the problem was didn't make itself apparent immediately. At least not until he stared at one badly organized shelf in particular, and had to fight down the sudden urge to rearrange things to a more sensible order. The data he handled and maintained back on the fortress was mostly digital, but even then, everything had its place. This was the same thing, only with physical media. It was starting to bother Jin enough he had to look away from the shelves, otherwise he would probably reach out and start fixing things. Given the inkling of an idea forming in his head, he didn't want to do that just yet. Why work when you're not getting paid for it? “It's an impressive assortment, but this library doesn't seem all that well taken care of. Whose job is it to maintain things here?”

Fumu looked over the books herself, noted the mess things had gotten into and kind of sighed in exasperation. “It's either the Waddle Dees or Escargon, but the Dees are too busy with all the other parts of the castle, and Escargon is always doing things with Dedede. I try to put things back where I found them at least, but that doesn't really help when everything's already so disorganized.”

Jin was about to comment on that, when one of the doors leading into the room opened, and who should slither in but a certain snail. Escargon glanced over to the two, hmmphed to himself, and then moved towards one of the shelves. When it seemed even he was having trouble finding whatever book he wanted, that's when the demon saw his chance. “Ah, Your Excellency; just the person I wished to speak with. I see you're having quite some difficulty finding whichever book you're searching for. Tell me, do you have anyone specific to take care of things in here?”

Escargon tried his best to ignore the salesman, still looking for the one botany textbook he wanted. Between Jin's voice and the fact the book just didn't seem to be there, he ended up focusing on the demon anyway. All right, it was more like squinting, especially since he recognized just a bit of the schmoozing tone Jin used on Dedede in the words. “Well, I'd certainly have an easier time if _someone_ wasn't distracting me. And no, the Waddle Dees take care of everything in the castle, even in here. They're completely inept at keeping a library together, though.” He paused for a moment, wondering if even considering this was a good idea, but he was a bit softer-hearted than his boss. Didn't mean he had to be nice about it, though. “You want something, I can just tell . . . well then, say it and get it over with, just remember I'm not as gullible as His Majesty.”

“Really?” Jin feigned surprise, before smirking a bit. “I remember you being perfectly happy to accept the robot parts I sent here.”

Oh, of course he would bring that up, and Escargon instantly went on the defensive. He was all kinds of stressed that week, there really wasn't much choice in the matter of getting those parts at the time. “Those were extenuating circumstances! Never mind the fact you convinced His Majesty to press the red button afterward...”

The demon of course had still more ammo, and given the current resistance he used it as well. “And I can't forget your acceptance of the Heavy Metal Shell that His Majesty ordered for you.”

“Also extenuating circumstances!” The thought of that incident strangely reminded Escargon of what happened that morning, with Dedede's thievery. Wasn't it odd that it was only Fumu and Kirby that came to retrieve a certain set of eyewear? This time it was the snail's turn to smirk, flipping things right back onto Jin. “You're certainly one to talk about that, considering you couldn't even try to get your sunglasses back yourself this morning. If what your eyes look like isn't anyone's business, then neither is the way I look without a shell. What do you have to say to that, huh?”

It was suddenly very difficult for Jin to keep his facade up, though with a bit of effort he managed it and was about to say something nasty in reply.

Well, he would have, if Fumu hadn't suddenly cleared her throat quite loudly. Stars, if she didn't do something they would probably never stop trading barbs with each other. She took a second to lightly elbow Jin. “Ahem. Before you boys got all distracted, didn't you want to ask him something?”

The girl's interjecting caught the both of them flatfooted, though as always, Jin was the quickest to recover and smoothly changed tacts. “Oh, right. Apologies for dragging things off-topic. As I was going to ask earlier, if the Waddle Dees are so incompetent, perhaps you would prefer someone else to maintain this library? Namely, myself? It's definitely one of the least dangerous tasks I could perform here, and I have all the proper skills. I won't do this for free, you understand; if I'm to remain stranded here, I'll need at least some spending money to live comfortably. Will you at least consider it?”

Escargon's initial kneejerk thought was to reject the demon utterly, but then he caught sight of Fumu standing beside Jin. Oh no, she was doing the puppy dog eyes thing. It was one thing to resist the former salesman trying his best to look sincere, when over here was a little girl who actually was being sincere, in the hopes of getting the poor sap beside her a job. As much as the snail wondered just what would happen if Jin didn't have anything to do, he had a feeling any excess energy would end up twisted into spite and targeted on himself and Dedede. In the interest of keeping any potential trouble to a dull roar, it was probably best to cave on this. What harm could Jin do anyway, just taking care of books? “Well, I'll think about it . . . you'll probably do a better job than the Dees, though that doesn't take much. The next time I see the Cabinet Minister I'll discuss it with him.”

Jin was a bit shocked that was so easy, though he didn't show it, instead preferring to display his appreciation. He even went so far as to bow his head a little bit. “Oh, thank you very much for giving me this chance, Your Excellency!”

Maybe he could have toned it down a bit, given Escargon's reaction. “It's not like it's all that great . . . then again, I imagine if you didn't have some sort of job, you'd probably go stir-crazy. You always seemed to be at work before, whenever we called. Well, like I said, I'll discuss it with Parm later...” With that he turned to leave, only to pause at the door. He was so distracted by the demon he forgot all about his book! “Oh, pfft, forgot why I came in here. If you really want to prove yourself, I have something for you: find me the botany text I came in here to grab. It has a blue cover, and I wasn't the author.”

With that little challenge given, Jin turned to face the shelves, rapidly scanning over the titles to find the book in question. He thought he had a match, but then there was another that might've worked as well. “Hmm, is it light blue or dark blue?”

“It's light blue.”

“Found it!” The demon headed over to retrieve the proper text, then returned to hand it off to Escargon. “Is this the correct book? I sighted another over there with a darker binding, but it should be this one considering you specified light blue.”

Escargon accepted the book he was handed, taking a moment to glance over it before nodding. “Yes, this is the right one. Heh, guess you do have some potential at this after all.” With the text in hand, he turned to leave the library. “Well, I've got experiments to run now, so be seeing you...”

The demon and the girl watched him head off for a moment, but soon enough Escargon disappeared out the door. Jin turned back towards all those shelves filled with books, glancing over them with a bit more scrutiny. “Hmm, I'm going to have to get some idea of where to start before I do anything. Finding that text was a bit more difficult than I made it look...”

“I hope you're not planning to hole up in here for the rest of the day to do that, there's still a few more things I want to show you.” Fumu thought for a moment, knowing that wasn't too likely to convince Jin to keep moving rather than staying in the library. It was hard to think like he might even for a little bit, but the earlier mentioning of money gave her an idea . “You won't be paid for anything until Escargon has a chance to bring up the idea to Papa, you know. Since he was headed for his lab, that might not be for hours.”

On one hand, Jin was getting a little bored of following the girl around the castle. On the other, yes, she was probably right about not being paid until some sort of agreement was reached. The desire to reorganize things nearly won out, but the desire for money was just a little bit stronger. “It's such a mess, though . . . but you're right, there's no point in doing work for them before I'm certain I'll be paid for it.” With only slight reluctance, he turned away from the bookshelves and headed towards the door. “All right, what would you like to show me next?”

“Well, have you gone into the courtyard yet? I think I saw you looking out there a few times, but you always turned right back around afterward. If you were nervous about going out there alone, at least I'll be with you this time!” She wasn't sure how well he would like the idea, given he probably did live on the fortress for his entire life. Still, he was going to have to get used to being outside eventually, might as well get that process started as soon as she could.

“S-somehow I'm not all that reassured... but if I can handle being out on your balcony, I should be able to do this without problems.” Oh, the very idea of that sent a jolt down Jin's spine, but as usual he didn't show any signs of nervousness other than the initial stutter. He still followed along after Fumu as she left the library, inwardly very unsure about the whole 'outdoors' thing.

* * *

“Come on, it's perfect outside!” Fumu stepped out into the courtyard, but when she didn't hear Jin following her anymore, she stopped and looked back at him. Jin stood in the doorway, cautiously peering outside and gripping the wall beside him tightly with one hand. He seemed frozen in place, so Fumu spoke softly to try and coax him forward. “You'll have to get used to the outdoors sooner or later, especially if you ever want to leave the castle. Nothing out here will hurt you, I promise.”

Realizing she saw him freeze up, Jin let go of the wall and walked outside, boldly setting foot on the grass. It felt strange under his feet, but he tried to ignore it as he made his way over to Fumu. “Now who said I was worried about that?” Continuing to display confidence he didn't really feel, his thoughts were racing almost as fast as his heartbeat was. The grass, the blue sky, the sun . . . all things he only encountered in videos or photographs. The demon knew he was shaking a little, and could feel himself starting to freeze up again, but he pushed past it as best he could and kept walking. It was all so very strange, but at least nothing jumped out of a bush to try and eat him yet. He was watching said bushes like a hawk, though . . . thankfully his guide speaking up again distracted him from his growing paranoia.

“Let's go sit by the fountain, okay?” 'By the fountain' turned out to be on the edge of it, and Fumu sat down.

Jin didn't sit down right away, instead he took a closer look at the fountain. It looked just the same as it always had, water cascading as beautifully as ever. There weren't any signs it had been rebuilt yet again after the Destrayer attack of over a month ago. “Those Waddle Dees are quite skilled with repairs. I stopped counting how many times this fountain was destroyed by one demon beast or another, but no matter how many times it happens they always manage to repair it as if it were never scratched. It would have been nice to have a few of them around the fortress...”

Having said that, the demon moved to sit down as well, just in time for the wind to suddenly decide to gust a bit and ruffle his hair from behind. He jolted at the sudden movement, not quite able to hold back a faint yelp. “W-what was that?”

Fumu just sort of blinked in confusion at his reaction, wondering what the problem was. “That's just the wind.” It took another second or two of thought as to just why he reacted that way for things to really click, but once they did she had to fight down yet another twinge of pity. She was feeling more surprised than sorry, though, and she focused mainly on that so as not to worsen Jin's mood. “Wow, you really haven't been outdoors before, have you?”

“O-of course not!” Jin had to take a moment to push back his anxiety; his voice was shaking a bit more than he liked, and that response had come out too snappish for his tastes. He closed his eyes behind the shades and focused on his breathing, slowly managing to correct it into a more average pattern. When he opened his eyes again he still wasn't entirely calm, but he had a better handle on things. “I am Nightmare's second in command, and everything my duties required could be handled from the fortress. What need would I have to ever set foot anywhere beyond it, except if by accident or in an emergency like this one? If not for the actions of all of you, I would have never left.”

And there he went, making it even harder for the girl to hold back her pity. It was bad enough just being outside was so strange and different that he seemed frightened of it, but he didn't even think there was anything wrong with staying on that space station for all of his existence. On the most basic level Fumu supposed there wasn't anything wrong with it, but even at her young age, she knew there was so much more to life. “You never wanted to explore, or to see what things were like somewhere else?” There was a part of her that also wanted to address him not quite thinking of his old life in the past tense, but it had only been a month and a half . . .

“Haven't we gone over this before? It simply was not safe for me to venture beyond the fortress. Perhaps when I was very young, when I didn't know better, I may have wanted to...” Jin paused for a moment, lost in thought and the depths of his memories. In the end he shook his head, knowing that wouldn't have truly mattered. “Even with that, well, let's just say not every child is fortunate enough to be as healthy as you are. It's quite difficult to want to explore when one barely has the energy to leave their quarters.”

As much as she wanted him to elaborate, Fumu knew better than to ask. She was lucky enough to get this small scrap of info out of him, asking for more would probably have him roll his eyes and change the subject. Still, she did risk voicing a tiny bit of her feelings about it, given it was kind of rude not to. “That must have been terrible; I'm sure you wanted to play back then, but just couldn't do it. At least you seem to have plenty of energy now, though.”

That elicited a bit of a shrug from the demon, too focused on the rest of the courtyard to really notice Fumu may have been feeling sorry for him. “It was enough for living on the fortress . . . I'm not sure about here, though.”

Fumu let out a sigh, as this particular line of conversation seemed to be dying. Still there were other things that could be talked about, one of which had been bugging her since they started sitting out there in the sun. In this light, Jin's hair almost looked more green than purple, that certainly wasn't anything normal hair did. “Um, this is probably going to sound random, but what is going on with your hair?”

And random it was, almost random enough that Jin was reminded of some of Dedede's odd questions. “Eh?” He looked over the side of the fountain to glance at his reflection in the water, not finding anything really wrong with his hair. Although, the highlights were a lot brighter than usual for some reason, likely due to the sun. “What do you mean? My hair looks the same as it always does . . . though being out here seems to be making the highlights stand out more.”

“Highlights are supposed to match your hair color . . . yours should be a brighter purple, not neon green. Such a odd combination, though I swear I've seen an effect like that before, somewhere...” Fumu glanced over the demon's hair, wondering just why it was so strangely colored. There were so many weird things about the demon sitting in front of her, but this almost felt like a mystery she would be able to solve . . . though that depended on his reaction, really.

Judging from the way Jin's brows were currently furrowing, it certainly didn't look like a good reaction. He narrowed his eyes at the girl behind his shades, though other than that he sounded relatively calm about it. “An 'odd combination', is that so? You say that, and yet your brother's hair is blond and blue.”

“Bun's hair is like that because he dyes the ends with markers when he thinks our mom's not looking! Yours is natural, well at least as natural as a demon beast's hair can be.” Wait a minute, that word... natural, nature-- Suddenly Fumu remembered where she saw the same sort of effect as what Jin's hair was doing. “Oh, I know where I've seen this before! Some of the birds that live around here have feathers with two colors just like your hair. I wonder if it works the same way?” She moved a little closer to him, trying to get a better look.

That was about the last straw, and Jin scooted back from the girl, not wanting to see if she was brave enough to actually reach out and touch his hair. In the end even that was too close and he slid from the fountain's edge, standing in the grass again. “Hmmph, I'm not letting someone who called it odd anywhere near my hair. Since you've been so insulting, I believe I would rather explore this courtyard by myself for a while . . .” With that said, he started walking away from the fountain. The wind suddenly decided to gust once more and he froze for a second, but fought it off as best he could so he could keep moving. As nervous as he was about being out there, staying near the girl would've only made things worse.

“Jin, wait, I didn't mean it like that--” Fumu called out after him, but it was no use, the demon just kept walking into the distance. For a second she felt bad, but then she focused on some of the 'finer' moments of how he was acting all day, her temper flaring at the memory. She watched him walk off, glaring daggers into his back.

* * *

Jin continued his wandering around the courtyard despite how warm he felt, though he was sort of looking for a more shade-covered spot. He found it in a small garden area off in one corner, with a rather unusual statue situated at the center of it. At first glance, he might've said it was yet another useless statue of Dedede, but on closer inspection the only thing it had in common with the king was that the subject was another penguin like him. This one seemed to be a warrior priestess of some sort, with a warhammer strapped to the back of her flowing robes, and in the statue's hands was a bow and arrow, aimed towards the sky and ready to fire. It was rather odd, especially since he didn't remember ever noticing the statue before. Maybe the camera system didn't extend in that direction, or something in the area badly interfered with the signal, as it was obvious the statue was quite old indeed. Definitely older than the castle itself, and maybe even older than Cappy civilization in the area. The demon ventured closer, noting an inscription on the base of the statue. Before he could read it, however, he was interrupted by one of the last people he felt like encountering.

“Hey, you! Get away from my ancestor's statue! If you break anything on it, the next thing I'm smashing with my hammer is you...” Having properly threatened his unwanted guest, Dedede stepped closer to the statue himself, growling faintly when Jin stayed put rather than scurrying away.

As the king didn't show much besides his typical bluster, Jin didn't bother reacting to it, and even went so far as to indulge his curiosity given what Dedede had said. “This is one of your ancestors, Your Majesty?” He glanced from the statue to the king and back again. “Well, I can certainly see the resemblance. She seems a bit more of a fighter than you are, though. Would you happen to know anything else about her, something like a name or perhaps why this statue is here in the first place?” Ordinarily he probably wouldn't have cared, but it wasn't like he had anything else to do at that particular moment.

Dedede was a bit surprised the demon wanted to know, but he always had time to brag about his family line. He let loose one of his usual cackles as he looked up at the statue, before finally saying anything more about it. “Her name's Lelele; she was the very start of my noble family line! From the tales I was told, she was some kind of holy priestess, and a demon hunter . . . heheh, I bet if she ever came across you, she would've either filled you full of arrows or crushed you with that hammer of hers. Anyhow, I don't know why the statue's here and not even Curio can read the inscription, but it being here is why I built my castle here. My pops wouldn't let me have his kingdom, so he told me to go find our ancestral lands and build my own.”

At the mention of even Curio being unable to read the text on the statue's base, Jin stepped close enough to make an attempt himself, taking a good look at the runes carved there. They seemed vaguely familiar to him, though it certainly wasn't a language still in common use. “Hmm, not even that archaeologist fellow can read this? That's not entirely surprising; I imagine he's only familiar with languages that are native to Pop Star. This is quite ancient indeed, but I have come across it a few times, mostly on artifacts brought back by Holy Nightmare's exploration ships. Maybe High Photoron.... wait, with the way the runes curve, this is actually in Ancient Felisian. I may be able to translate this.”

“Really? Well go on, get to translating! I might be willing to forget some of your troublemaking if you manage it . . . I always wondered what it said, but Escargon and Curio could never make heads or tails of it.” Granted, that was a promise Dedede had no intention of keeping, but if saying it got the demon to cooperate then so be it.

Jin of course saw right through it, rolling his eyes behind his shades. “Hmm, is that something like how I'll gladly forget all about your debt if you choose a target besides myself to terrorize, Your Majesty? Fortunately for you, I am just bored enough to translate this anyway.” The message was relatively short, but it was quite a while since he did any translation work from Ancient Felisian. It took him a few moments to make sense of the runes, and he reached out to trace over one set that was giving him more trouble than the rest.

The moment his fingers even brushed against the stone, however, something rather odd happened. What felt like static electricity jumped between him and the statue at the point he touched it, though with how often he was similarly zapped by many of the systems back on Nightmare's fortress, he ignored it with ease. It would only be sometime later in the day, after moving on to other things when he questioned it, as stone wasn't usually able to hold a static charge. “This set means 'path', I believe this set reads as 'twilight, and that one refers to the arrow the statue is aiming . . . which leads to the entire phrase reading something like this: 'To one who would walk the path of twilight, let my arrows show you the way'.”

“Huh? Is that all it says? Nothing about how great my family line is or anything?” Dedede looked half annoyed, half disappointed, not really knowing what to make of the phrase as it was given.

“That was the entirety of the inscription, Your Majesty. Perhaps this statue was some type of guidepost along the route of a religious pilgrimage, given your priestly ancestor here?” Jin glanced up at the statue again, also somewhat unsure of what to make of it, though he looked a bit bothered by something. “That 'path of twilight' seems oddly familiar for some reason, though...”

The penguin monarch had already grown bored of standing there staring at the statue, and he started to wander away. “Feh, it's nothing interesting to me, then. Path of twilight or whatever, I don't care . . . all I give a damn about is this thing marking my ancestral lands. Look into it more if you want, but it probably doesn't mean anything.”

Jin stood there and watched Dedede leave, then glanced over the statue one last time. For some reason, the expression on the Lelele statue's face seemed quite sad, now that he looked a bit more closely. He pondered why that was, as well as why the phrase inscribed on the statue felt so infuriatingly familiar, but after a few moments more, he left the area as well and headed back inside.

* * *

It was well after dark, and Meta Knight was crossing the courtyard on one of the usual late night patrol routes. He switched a shift with Blade, as while he sensed no demon beasts other than their unwanted guest, something in the air still felt strangely off. He couldn't exactly say it felt wrong either, but something out of the ordinary was building strength somewhere on the castle grounds.

If it hadn't been so silent as he walked past one of the gardens, the knight might not have heard the faint rumble of ancient stone shifting its position. Pausing and looking to his right, the armored puffball discovered one of the nearby statues was surrounded in an unearthly blue-violet glow, the monument dedicated to the ancient penguin priestess seeming to pull back on its bowstring. But then, it actually was pulling back on the stone string, and let an arrow cloaked in the same blue-violet energy fly off into the distance, with such strength it vanished from sight in short order.

Meta Knight continued to watch the statue as it returned to its previous position, the strange glow fading utterly now that its task was finished. Nothing else seemed to happen after that, even though he was half expecting the statue to jump from its pedestal and start randomly attacking Waddle Dees. Given it didn't appear to be a threat, the knight moved on, back to the rest of his patrol. He would tell Sword and Blade of the incident later, but felt no one else really needed to know.

 


	8. Chess Match With a Star Warrior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jin ends up challenging Meta Knight to the only sort of duel he can: a game of chess. This... goes about as well as one might expect.

A few days later, Jin was wandering across the courtyard in boredom when he came across something interesting. Meta Knight and Sword were sitting on the edge of the fountain in the middle of the courtyard, with Blade sitting in the grass nearby. Now, seeing the three knights together like that wasn't so unusual, but it was only when the demon stepped closer that he noticed what they were doing. There was a chess board set up between Meta Knight and Sword, and they were in the middle of a game. The younger warrior was losing badly, with only a few pieces standing between his king and checkmate. To Sword's credit, he was trying not to look too disheartened as the inevitable slowly occurred. Blade sat there watching the game, and from the way he was slouching, he likely already played against Meta Knight and lost.

Not wanting to disturb the two chess players, Jin approached Blade and asked, “So, what's this about?”

Blade startled slightly. The knight was just a little bit too focused on the game, and Jin had been downright silent as he moved closer. He tried not to sound too surprised, though. “Oh, it's just you. Sir Meta Knight plays chess with us every once in a while, he says it's to help us think more strategically. I don't see why you'd care about that . . .” Blade trailed off as he looked up at Jin, who watched the game and was getting the same sort of eager smile on his face as the knight often did when facing a worthy opponent. Not that anyone ever saw Blade smile in the midst of battle, but he certainly knew he was doing it. “Oh, I get it. You'd like to take a shot at him, wouldn't you? This should be interesting.”

“Well, I hope it will be, at any rate.” Jin fell silent as he watched the game, waiting for a lull in the action before he made his challenge. “Sir Meta Knight? Once you've finished destroying your follower there, how would you like a real game?” The smile on his face hardened into his usual smirk. “I promise I won't bore you as much as these two probably have.”

Meta Knight glanced over at the demon, his eyes glowing brighter for a second before turning back to the chess board. It was unexpected to be sure . . . then again, the knight supposed it was the only kind of battle his would-be opponent could have with a Star Warrior and hope to win. Without a word, he moved his queen into check position. It took a second for Sword to realize he'd lost, and that was when Meta Knight spoke. “Sword, you still go charging in a little too quickly. If you strike too early, you leave yourself open to your opponent.” He turned to look at Jin again, and motioned for him to come closer. “Well then, get over here if you're so eager to lose.”

“My, such confidence. You'll be feeling a lot differently at the end of this, Star Warrior.” Jin waited for Sword to get out of the way, then took his place at the chess board.

Meta Knight's side of the board held the white pieces, so he moved first. All things considered, both sides had fairly mundane opening moves. The start of the game wasn't going to be the interesting part, though the rest promised to be quite heated indeed. The inevitable trash talk would only help with that...

Jin stared down at the board and his pieces, confident in the decoys and traps he'd placed, smirking when he noticed Meta Knight moving one of his pawns onto a rather dubious square. “Are you sure you want to move it onto that square? You never know what might happen to that poor little pawn...”

Meta Knight just shrugged as Jin moved one of his pieces to pounce on said undefended pawn, the soldier's eyes briefly showing a pink glow for a moment. “Sometimes the only thing to do with a trap is spring it . . . though I am sure that was not the only one you have in play currently.”

Jin fanned the air with one hand, as if to drive off the accusation. “My, my, you certainly expect the worst of me. You are quite correct, of course; but I'll never tell you where they are, or even if there is more than one. With that warning given, Sir Meta Knight, do you still wish to continue? I would understand if you can't bear the embarrassment of losing to me.”

The knight's eyes glowed brighter for a moment, though he still took his turn, again moving a pawn into position. “To surrender now would be far worse, in my opinion. Better to give my all and fail, as opposed to not even making an effort.”

“I suppose that is the philosophy that helps you sleep at night, given how many failures you and your Galaxy Soldier Army suffered? This will be yet another failure, and I haven't even needed to use anything new so far . . . I'm surprised you haven't noticed already.” Even as powerless as he was, there was something of the predator driven into the demon from a young age. It was of course still with him even now, and Jin almost smiled like a wolf as he debated on which piece he was going to use. He didn't linger too long on one piece or another, but eventually his hand reached for a knight. “Perhaps it will jog your memory if I do _this_...”

At once Jin moved the knight across the board, a seemingly bold move for how defensively he was playing thus far, though it did still fit with his overall strategy.

Even though the scenario was starting to look vaguely familiar, Meta Knight still did not recall, and saw said piece in the middle of the chessboard as obvious bait. So he ignored it, going for another piece that was a bit better defended, but seemed to be a target that wouldn't punish him immediately for trying to take it.

“Ohohoho, still haven't remembered, have you? I would give you a hint, but I imagine my next move should do that well enough on its own. Although, I don't suppose you can recall the first time you saw a Destrayer in battle? That's all I'm giving you...” Another devilish smirk, and the demon took up another of his pieces, beginning the flanking maneuver that would close the jaws of the trap around Meta Knight's king.

“A Destrayer...?” It was that one hint that finally got the Star Warrior's memories flowing, and for a brief instant he imagined he was back aboard the starship he served on during the war, where he first sighted the saucer-like ships bearing down upon the GSA fleet. Once Meta Knight shook that off, the placement of Jin's pieces were another nasty reminder, and the gasp that came out of him afterwards was tinged with equal parts shock and rage. “You... Nightmare's strategist behind the battle for the Halfmoon system, that was you?!”

“Of course. It was the perfect opportunity to show off my new warships. Hmmph, that Sir Arthur of yours thought he had an impenetrable defense in that system, until those first Destrayers cut a swath through his front lines--” So proud of his victory, so eager to brag as he was, Jin didn't notice the Star Warrior's eyes glowing a flat red until it was half a second too late.

Meta Knight couldn't remember the last time he felt so angry. The battle for Halfmoon had effectively taken the GSA out of the space side of the war, given the phenomenal amount of ships lost, to say nothing of the death toll, and here's the bastard behind it right in front of him? If he were thinking a bit more clearly he may have gone for Galaxia, as it was there was a low growl from the puffball and then he just lunged across the chessboard. Pieces went flying everywhere as he lashed out at his enemy.

The demon only had enough time to look surprised and bring his left arm up to attempt blocking the strike. By some miracle he managed it, crying out in pain when the punch hit. The force of the blow still sent Jin flying from his seat on the edge of the fountain, though. Thankfully he didn't end up in the water, instead landing on the grass nearby. That _hurt_ , more than anything he could recall in recent memory. Survival instinct told him to scramble to his feet and run, but Meta Knight only took one menacing step closer and the demon froze in place, much like he did during their first encounter centuries ago.

Sword and Blade were still watching all this in the background, neither of the knaves entirely sure what to do. They certainly wouldn't help the former salesman intentionally, but it might be better to keep the enraged Star Warrior from killing someone with his bare hands. For the moment they just watched, waiting to see which way things were going to go. Sword personally thought their lord probably was going to kill the demon in the next few minutes.

Fate had other ideas, however.

“Poyo?”

Everybody turned to look at the sound, and there was the only puffball who would say that, standing there and glancing between Meta Knight and Jin in confusion.

Kirby wasn't sure what was going on here, but his new friend looked to be in a lot of pain! Concern overrode any thoughts of figuring out what happened, and he scrambled to clear the distance between himself and Jin. In his eagerness to check on him, he ended up accidentally brushing against Jin's injury, causing the demon to let loose a howl of agony and wilt to the ground. Oh no, his friend was probably hurt! Faced with this, the young Star Warrior looked towards Meta Knight, his frantic poyos could probably be translated to 'please help my friend'.

“Kirby...” The elder Star Warrior stopped in place at this. Kirby's sudden appearance made most of the lingering rage burn out, and now the pink puff stood between him and his enemy. The baby puffball probably hadn't seen the whole incident, not that Meta Knight really cared. Without many other ideas, the soldier simply wrapped his cape around himself without a word, and turned and walked away. There would be a next time for revenge, after all.

Sword and Blade were the next to be targeted by Kirby's puppy dog eyes routine, and being far younger and less hardened than their boss, couldn't manage to resist. Blade sort of sighed in resignation as he spoke to the little hero. “All right, Kirby, we'll go get the doctor if you want...”

“Poyo!” With the two knights headed off to the village, Kirby seemed satisfied to stay put and keep an eye on the still downed demon.

It was only when he was sure Sword and Blade were out of earshot that Jin sat up and let out the laugh he was holding back. “Ohohoho, saved by the 'poyo' . . . it seems you're useful for something after all.” Kirby poking him right on his injury was unpleasant to be sure, but it wasn't really worthy of the show he put on. It worked well enough to make the puffball want to help him more, though! But speaking of said help, he had to wonder about just where those knights were going. The demon really hoped they weren't going to fetch that quack from the village...

* * *

It took most of Jin's self-control to keep from snarling at Yabui and pulling away as the doctor continued to poke at his injured left arm. Only the thought that he had no desire to give anyone else the pleasure of seeing him in pain again managed to keep him on an even keel, though he grit his teeth every time his injury was disturbed. The longer the village doctor took, the harder it was to keep his cool, however. “Are you quite finished yet?”

Yabui in turn squinted at his patient through his glasses, though the demon wouldn't have noticed that. Personally, he wished he had been allowed to examine Jin at his office, but the knights refused to let him leave the castle. That hadn't been an option, so things had to be done the hard way. Dream Land's unwanted guest didn't seem too badly injured at least, although it probably did still hurt like hell. “Yes. You're going to have quite a bit of bruising here, given it was Sir Meta Knight that struck you, but there is no fracture. You're lucky; if he was more focused on causing damage, this would have been much worse.” He took a moment to dig around in his bag, soon pulling out a small bottle full of pills, which he then handed to Jin. “Here, take two of these painkillers as needed, but don't take more than six of them over a day. Other than that, I suppose we're done here.”

It didn't take long for the village doctor to pack up his things and be on his way after that, leaving Jin to stare after him briefly before turning back towards the castle proper. The still throbbing pain of his arm nearly distracted him from the presence of Sword and Blade, who seemed to be staring at him intently. “Is there still something the two of you need?”

Blade glanced to Sword for a moment, then back to the demon in front of them. “Yes. Go back to your room, and pray you don't run into our lord again on the way there. It would be in your best interests to be out of sight by the time our next patrol rolls around...”

“Your next patrol is in half an hour, and I can tell Sir Meta Knight's 'aura of Star Warrior', for lack of a better term, apart from Kirby's. If I detect him, I will simply go in the opposite direction.” Having said that, Jin gave the bottle of pain meds a bit of a shake to call their attention to it. “Besides that, I at least need some water to take a few of these.”

The knights shared another glance, and then Blade shrugged. “Suit yourself, but it's your funeral if you aren't fast enough to avoid him.” With that said, the two warriors walked off, likely to go find Meta Knight.

Jin hmmphed faintly to himself as he watched Sword and Blade wander off. He idly wondered where Kirby went, but got his answer when he heard another 'poyo' in the distance. The little puffball must have heard him speaking to the two knights, as Kirby headed in his direction with a glass full of water, being careful not to spill any of it.

“Poyo? Poyo poyo!” Kirby stepped closer and offered the glass to the demon, still eager to help his new friend.

Even if he did benefit from Kirby's help earlier, Jin still hesitated for a few moments. It was one thing to just passively take advantage of the puffball's sudden appearance, this was something else entirely. Yes, he did end up taking that apple those weeks ago, but that was under duress! He wasn't sure where the line between accepting their help and betraying Nightmare was, he didn't really want to cross it even if he was playing at turning a new leaf. In the end, pragmatism won out over spite; it was only a glass of water after all. He took it from Kirby and downed two of the pills with it, giving the glass back to the puffball when he finished the water.

The little Star Warrior seemed satisfied with that, fine with not even really getting thanked. Kirby glanced over the demon one last time, probably to make sure he was relatively all right, then let out a poyo and waved one little paw in farewell before turning to head into the castle.

Again Jin was left standing there alone with his thoughts, but after a moment he started heading for the castle interior as well. It wouldn't do to still be out there when the knights went patrolling, given the earlier close call. No, no he wasn't scared of Meta Knight! Just the inkling of that thought forming got shouted down with everything he had. It would just be a good idea to avoid the elder Star Warrior for now, that was all. No, not scared, not in the slightest...

As he walked, Jin got to thinking of the last time he needed medical attention back on the fortress . . . ironically it was due to Mike Kirby, if he recalled correctly. At least with the latest incident he had gotten off relatively lightly, as opposed to the first time, where Kirby ended up within yards of him while holding that power.

* * *

Jin had barely closed the channel with Castle Dedede when he hopped from his chair, his hands clamped tightly over his ears, which were still ringing. Thankfully with the communications system filtering out the worst of Mike Kirby, he didn't feel like he was about to pass out, but it was better to be safe than sorry. At least the fortress's medical station was on the same floor of the central tower as the command center, and a short walk besides. He still ended up cringing at nearly every sound he heard above a certain decibel level as he made his way down the corridor, though.

It didn't take him long to arrive at his destination, the door sliding open at his approach. Sure enough, the faint sound of the door's hydraulics caught the attention of the lone medical staffer within the room. Her kind was something of a rarity in the galaxy these days, there really weren't many alive who had encountered another Felisian like her. Her name was Elsa; her main duty was to serve as Holy Nightmare's chief medical officer, though she was really one of the few medical doctors even employed by the company. There was that Moro guy, but his doctorate was in genetic engineering. In any case, one fur-lined ear flicked towards the noise she heard, though she finished the bit of recordkeeping she was working on before glancing toward the door.

Elsa didn't even have to guess at what happened, just judging by the way the demon held his hands over his ears. “Mike Kirby again, hmm?” There was a whimper from her patient and she quickly lowered the volume of her voice. Jin likely wouldn't be able to handle any sort of loud noise for at least a few hours. “Sorry, sorry! Now, I know it's painful, but I need to take a look at your ears. You fared better than that time he was here on the fortress, since you were able to walk in here under your own power, but we can't be too careful about this sort of thing.”

There was another faint whimper from Jin, and he edged backwards a little bit while still shielding his ears.

The Felisian's blue eyes narrowed at him just a bit. “Oh, don't give me that; you know I wouldn't be asking to check if it wasn't necessary.” Elsa retrieved a scope from a drawer, switched the cover over the scope's tip for a fresh one, and then stepped out from behind her desk. “Come on, this will only take a second. Afterwards I'll give you some medicine for the headache I know you have, and you can go lie down in the other room for a while. There's better soundproofing in there, and this way I can make sure you're actually resting.”

It was the promise of meds that finally got the demon to relent and lower his hands; anything to make the pain stop was all right with him.

Taking his action as permission, Elsa stepped closer to do her check. “Thank you, now just hold still for a moment.” First she checked the right side, compensating when Jin flinched a little as she placed the scope, then she checked the left. “There, I said it wouldn't take long. Even better, I didn't spot any damage to your eardrums this time; they're certainly irritated, but you'll be fine in a few hours.”

Jin managed to let out a sigh of relief at that, his last encounter with Mike Kirby had him stuck in a bed for about three days, and at least mildly sedated for the majority of the first day. There was something about the puffball's horrible singing that just did not get along with the physiology of created demon beasts, even if he was standing outside of the instantly lethal range that first time. Finding some means of neutralizing it might be worth some research, on a day where his head didn't hurt so badly.

“Still, it's probably a better idea for you to sleep it off as opposed to continuing to work. You won't be getting any calls from that stupid penguin any time soon, and your reports can wait for a while.” The Felisian moved around her office as she spoke, retrieving some appropriate painkillers and a cup of water to rinse them down with, handing both off to Jin. “There you are. If you need anything else, just yell, I'll be out here working for a good while yet.”

With the meds handed over, the demon took them, then headed through the nearby door into the next room. There was a row of beds, for those who needed to stay under Elsa's watch for longer. At the moment the room was unoccupied, and Jin claimed the bed closest to the door. He removed his jacket, tie, and sunglasses, placing them in a neat pile on the chair next to the bed, then moved to curl up under the sheets.

Jin had almost completely drifted off a few minutes later when he thought he felt someone tucking the sheets in a bit more securely around him. He could just barely make out Elsa whispering “Good night, dear...”, and he let out a contented little sigh before allowing sleep to claim him. The Felisian wasn't always the best at it, but she did still have her motherly moments.

* * *

In the present, Jin pulled himself from his memories, letting out a more dejected sort of sigh. Elsa survived the fortress's destruction by virtue of being away at the time. He ran a few quick calculations in his head. If the Felisian played true to her usual return time, she would've tried going back about a week after the fortress blew up. From there she would've certainly headed to the largest Holy Nightmare base remaining, the one on Halfmoon. After that there would be a time of trying to establish some sort of order even with most of the other command staff missing... but Elsa had to be looking for him by now, right? With Dream Land's end of the delivery system completely dismantled, it would just take a lot longer for anyone to find their way to Popstar.

At least, that's what he tried to tell himself, anyway.

Not particularly feeling like dealing with anyone else for the moment, the demon headed for his room. Hopefully some reading or some abacus practice would help settle his nerves, or at least take his mind off the sudden homesickness.

 


End file.
